Church election

I AM a member of one of the many Seventh-day Adventist churches in Port Moresby.
I was a delegate representing my local SDA church from one of the city suburbs.
I attended the recently-held Central Papua Conference of SDA Constituent Assembly at the Gateway Hotel from Nov 25-27.
The constituent assembly is held every five years to elect officers and directors of the Central Papua conference (CPC) of SDA, including the president, general secretary, treasurer, department directors and associates.
The last constituent assembly was held at Pacific Adventist University in 2013.
The election of officers and directors was seriously flawed and tainted with nepotism and flagrant subversion of election processes.
The provisions of the CPC constitution in relation to election of officers was glaringly breached and violated.
The constitution was not strictly followed in the election process.
Let me highlight a few examples of the constitutional breaches.
Section 2 of the CPC Constitution says all officers and directors must be elected at the constituent assembly through the nominating committee.
This provision was breached in that only a few officers were elected at Gateway Hotel.
The rest were referred to the CPC executive committee for appointment, which was totally illegal and unconstitutional.
The executive committee has no authority to elect officers and directors or take on the responsibilities of the constituent assembly.
The constitution clearly says that family members or close relatives of the current officers and directors must not be part of the nominating committee that nominates and elect officers. This clause was violated.
The constitution says the minutes and recommendations of the previous constituent assembly held in 2013 must be implemented by the officers and reports presented at the current meeting.
There was no minutes presented and no implementation reports presented at Gateway Hotel.
The officers failed to comply with the constitutional requirements in that regard, which was also a demonstration of incompetence and irresponsible behavior in leadership.
In light of the above irregularities and breaches of the election process as clearly stipulated in the CPC constitution, the Gateway Hotel election must be declared null and void and a fresh constituent assembly be called to conduct fresh elections in strict compliance with the constitution.
We are a church known worldwide for upholding the laws of God
Almighty with the highest integrity.
We must uphold our constitutional requirements, the law that governs the election process of our leaders.

Concerned church member
Boroko
NCD