2007 LPV election roll still has flaws: NRI election researcher

THE 2007 Limited Preferential Voting (LPV) electoral rolls still had flaws and were seriously abused and undermined although, it was better than in 2002, a National Research Institute (NRI)  finding revealed.
Election research head at the National Research Institute Dr Ray Anere, who presented the findings on the 2007 general election during a road show at the DWU in Madang, revealed that although the LPV had limited some of the major problems encountered during elections, there were flaws, intimidation and undermining principles of one person-one vote still existed during the 2007 general election.
He said the research conducted by 14 researchers was one of the biggest researches carried out in 16 electorates throughout PNG.
Dr Anere said some of the key findings indicated the continuous and repeated practices existed during the election.
He said the seriously flawed region was the Highlands region while in the other regions, things had improved greatly.
The findings also showed there were other serious findings such as the lack of secret ballot, intimidation, use of excess ballot papers, harassment and tampering still existed particularly in the highlands.
He said wining and losing candidates in the Highlands region spent more than K1 million in the election while bribery practices also existed.
The research also found that votes were exchanged among candidates while the number of candidates dropped slightly from 2,875 in 2002 to 2,759 in 2007 while 1,478 of them were independent candidates.
Dr Anere said the research also found that forces of political cultures undermined the ability of LPV to be more conducive of the success of women candidates in which 101 of them contested resulting in only one woman elected.
He said election administration was not effective in the Highlands regions while it was better in the other regions.
“Lack of completed returns was a major problem while release of funds, late delivery of election materials, lack of accuracy of electoral rolls and the flaws with duplications, ghost names and omissions were obvious,” he said.