Candidates disturb Hela voting, force postponement

VOTING in Hela has been rescheduled for today after disturbances by some candidates forced a postponement yesterday.
Provincial election manager John Tipa said: “We were not able to deploy polling officers into polling areas until mid-day yesterday.
“Therefore, polling will commence (today).”
The election manager said he had already notified the electoral commissioner and he approved polling today.
“The police commissioner is also on the ground and polling officials and security personnel have been deployed into polling areas,” Tipa said.
“I am confident that we will have a successful polling today.”
The candidates contesting for the Komo-Margarima open seat, Koroba-Lake Kopiago open, Tari open and Hela regional submitted a petition to the electoral commissioner alleging that polling officers’ recruitment was biased and questioned the legitimacy of some ballot papers that were flown in during the weekend. Tipa clarified that the ballot papers for one ward was mistakenly delivered to another ward and that had caused a lot of misunderstanding and speculation.
“However, all that has been clarified.”
Electoral Commissioner Patilias Gamato said he would not make any changes to election managers, returning officers or polling officials as it was too late.
This will be Hela’s second elections.