PNC not contesting seats held by Coalition partners

National

By CLIFFORD FAIPARIK
The ruling National People’s Congress Party  will not contest seats held by  their coalition partners in next year’s general elections, PNC  general secretary Edward Jondi said yesterday.
That means they will not put up candidates for 13 seats.
“PNC is not contesting all the seats in the country. We respect National Alliance, United Resources Party, United Party and other smaller parties in coalition with us,” Jondi said.
“At the executive level, we have respect in the relationship we have so we agreed not to contest those seats.
Jondi said during a ‘’learning and development training workshop for political party executives’’ that there were 59 seats currently registered with PNC MPs and MPs aligned with PNC.
“We have so far identified 20 candidates to contest seats not held by our coalition partners. So we just want to be realistic to contest fewer than 75 seats throughout the country.”
Jondi said during the workshop at that no single party will win a majority 55 or 56 seats.
“Only coalition will form the government.”
Jondi said that PNC led government  implemented many things like free education, free health care and so forth.
“Like our party leader (and Prime Minister Peter O’Neill) had said that this is a start of many things to come. So we hope to continue after 2017. A lot of people are critical about PNC but many candidates contesting against us also have legal implications. There is no model prime minister so we have to work as a team and get the country forward.”