People praised for ‘maturity’ during polls

National

EASTERN Highlands administrator and chairman of the election steering committee Samson Akunai has praised the people of Eastern Highlands for demonstrating maturity in the of this elections.
Akunai said the election in Eastern Highlands was trouble free from nomination period to campaign and all the way to polling and counting.
“Unlike the previous elections in Eastern Highlands, this one was conducted peacefully and in an orderly manner,” he said.
“Although there was some delay in the counting, we eventually went through and declared all our eight MPs before the due date.
“It all went well except for the regional seat where we finally managed to get it in through (yesterday).”
He said the elections in Eastern Highlands went smoothly because of the boost in security personnel.
“I must say that the joint security operations in the Eastern Highlands was one of the best in the country and, therefore, there was no room for any wrong doing in the election process,” Akunai said.
He thanked the electoral commissioner and his staff  for their support and highlighted one of the issues they encountered during the election was the issue of updated Common Roll.
“This is something that we need to seriously review and update so in future elections so our people and the candidates can have some peace of mind that the roll is okay,” he said.
“The second issue is logistics. Eastern Highlands is the country’s second largest province and some of the districts are only accessible by air.”