Counting for NCD starts

By LULU MAGINDE
COUNTING for National Capital District’s (NCD) regional seat is finally underway and will hopefully be completed by July 25, says NCD election manager Kila Ralai.
Ralai said he was confident that his team of 180 counting officials working day and night would complete counting for Moresby South and NCD regional seats well before the return of writs on July 29.
A total of 90 day shift and 90 night shift workers situated at Rita Flynn will be continuously counting the open electorate and regional ballot papers.
Counting for the 125 ballot boxes for Moresby South began yesterday morning, in shifts of three teams working with 15 boxes.
Ralai noted that by 4pm, the first 15 ballot boxes for Moresby South were completed after which the night shift continued on with the next 15.
He said the process for the regional ballots would see scrutineers check all boxes before counting of ballots from Moresby South, Moresby North-West and Moresby North-East began.
He said he expected counting to be completed on or before July 25.
“I’ve got 499 boxes to be counted for all three open electorates for the regional seat, as soon as we knock off the first 15 boxes, then the night shift will be on standby to start counting the next 15 and so on until we’re done,” he said.

Returning officer relieved after North-East counting finally commenced

By HELEN TARAWA
COUNTING for Moresby North-East (MNE) electorate in the National Capital District has finally started yesterday afternoon.
Returning officer Billy George told The National that he was relieved that MNE counting had finally gotten off the ground.
“It’s a big relief that we’re starting now, working with the candidates, all coming to an understanding with the help of the security forces as well,” he said.
“A lot of the issues were security based so now that everything is in place, it’s a relief to get it started.”
MNE is the largest electorate in the National Capital District with four wards; 5, 6, 9 and 12.
George said a total of 200 counting officials had been engaged and would be working shifts, night and day.
He said closed circuit television (CCTV) cameras had been installed at the Sir John Guise Stadium to monitor the counting process.
George also said 152 scrutineers for the 76 candidates would work alongside the counting officials to ensure a transparent process.
He said MNE was the last electorate in NCD to start after so many delays due to security issues.
Counting for the other electorates in NCD, Moresby North-West started on Sunday while counting for Moresby South and the regional seat started yesterday.
George said they anticipated completing counting before July 22.
All the writs are expected to be returned by July 29.

Central counting underway, says official

COUNTING for Central began after lunch yesterday at Murray Barracks in Port Moresby with the first four boxes in the Kairuku district.
Retuning officer Henry Oa said a total of 50 ballot boxes will be counted which included the regional ballot boxes from Kairuku.
“25 ballots will be counted for the open seat while the other 25 will be for the regional seat,” he said.
He said counting should not take more than a week because they only had three local level governments (LLG) in the district.
“The first count started with team one and two in the Kuni LLG and would continue from there,” Oa said.
He said a petition was presented yesterday by some candidates contesting the Kairuku Open seat seeking to have two scrutineers representing them instead of one.

Hiri-Koiari candidate withdraws application to stop counting

By BEVERLY PETER
HIRI-KOIARI Open candidate Bruno Saiho’s application to stop the counting of the electorate’s ballot papers was discontinued yesterday in the National Court.
Justice Joseph Yagi at Waigani granted leave to discontinue the application and ordered Saiho to pay the defendant’s cost in the matter which are Electoral Commissioner Simon Sinai and the PNG Election Commission (EC).
The decision was made following Saiho’s application through his lawyer Brenden Lai to discontinue the matter after going through a Supreme Court decision made in relation to powers of the Electoral Commission.
Solicitor General Tauvasa Tanuvasa representing the EC and Sinai upon mentioning the case said the EC was not subjected to be controlled by any person or authority under section 126, sub-section 7.
Tanuvasa based his objection to the application on the Supreme Court decision of SCA 72 of 2006, a case between Electoral Commission and William Skate which arose from National Capital District by-election in 2006.
He said the Supreme Court had made it clear in that case that any authority could not interfere in the election process while it was still in progress.
“Supreme Court in the decision said the EC is not subjected to direction or control by any person or authority,” Tanuvasa said.
He said the appropriate way to invalidate such an election was by way of election petition under section 206 of the Organic Law after the completion of election process.
Lai, when applying for a discontinuation, said his client would consider filing an election petition after the return of writs.
The application in this proceeding sought to declare that the voting in Hiri-Koiari Open was illegal.