‘Voter friendly’ poll planned

Port Moresby (The National/PINA Nius Online, 12 November 2000) – Papua New Guinea will go to the polls starting on June 15, 2002, with a “voter friendly” system.

Electoral Commissioner Reuben Kaiulo announced the tentative program in Port Moresby.

And Mr. Kaiulo is hopeful that the election will be more ‘voter-friendly’ under a new enrollment registration process being put in place by the PNG Electoral Commission with the help of the Australian Electoral Commission.

This basically means revising and compiling 89 new Common Rolls, a multi-million kina Australian Government initiative which will take at least eight years. The revised system also includes the use of indelible ink for voters.

The Common Roll is a list of names of eligible electors who are allowed to vote in general or local government elections. It also contains details of the address, occupation, sex and religion of an elector.

Mr. Kaiulo said that enrollment is compulsory. “To have your name placed on the Common Roll you must use a proper Enrollment Form. These forms are only available from the Papua New Guinea Electoral Commission,” he added.

The multi-million kina project is being funded by the Australian Government aid agency, AusAID. It is the biggest single overseas project carried out by the Australian Electoral Commission to date.

Australian Electoral Commission officials, team leader Ross Mackay, and Ms. Kay Mousley, told a media briefing at the Parkroyal Hotel that the new Common Roll would work if there was cooperation from all concerned.

It is estimated that the first phase of the project will cost A$10.1 million (about K17 million) with the PNG Government supporting the costs of compiling the electoral roll and conducting the general election in 2007.

The purpose of the project is to strengthen an Electoral Commission that is independent and impartial and which manages an electoral process that is transparent so that all citizens may freely exercise their right to vote irrespective of sex, religion, cultural background and ethnicity.

The introduction of Information Technology will be in a phased manner and as the capacity of the PNG Electoral Commission is developed to absorb such technology and maintain the system it uses.

Although the project will support a wider process of institutional strengthening through developing a range of community awareness programs of NGOs and other government agencies, such support will be carefully identified so as not to compromise, or be seen as compromising, the independence of the PNG Electoral Commission.

The project is in two phases of four years duration — the first phase is from 2000 to 2004 and the second phase from 2004 to 2008. The current first phase is designed primarily to support the PNG Electoral Commission to conduct the 2002 general election and for it to position itself to conduct the general election in 2007.

Mr. Kaiulo said that it was necessary to have an accurate Common Roll that the public can have confidence in, to form the basis of free and fair elections in PNG and to reduce the number of court challenges after each election.