Dion overtakes Kaputin in ENB regional race

National, Normal
Source:

The National, Thursday July 19th, 2012

By ABIGAIL APINA
SITTING Governor Leo Dion secured a comfortable lead after the primary count in the provincial seat when it concluded yesterday.
He overtook Sir John Kaputin on Monday when boxes in Kokopo district were counted.
Dion maintained the lead after count 95, which were mainly ballot papers collected from police stations before polling securities were deployed to polling centres.
After count 95, Dion had led with 22,167 votes followed by Sir John with 17,160 votes.
Levi Orong follows Kaputin with 10,284 votes.
The total allowable ballot papers now stand at 87,160, while there was a record of 4,022 informal ballot papers.
A total of 91,182 people voted for the provincial seat out of 157,121 eligible voters in the electorate.
In Kokopo, Hereman ToBaining Jnr continued to maintain his lead after the sixth exclusion with 3,394 votes.
He is followed by Henry Libai, a candidate from Duke of York Islands, with 2,290 votes.
Third after the sixth exclusion was Emil Tammur, brother of former member for Kokopo, the late Patrick Tammur, with 2,189 votes.
It is understood that the absolute majority for Kokopo seat after the sixth exclusion was 11,215 votes.
For the Gazelle open electorate, counting resumed yesterday at 11am.
The counting was suspended at 6pm on Monday for security reasons.
Returning officer Ekonia Walom said they suspended the elimination process again at mid-day yesterday.
Walom said there were issues raised by campaign managers of certain candidates and their scrutineers.
He confirmed that eliminations resumed at 3pm yesterday after the issues raised were sorted out.
After the fifth exclusions, Norbert Kubak still maintained the  lead with 6,631 votes after gaining 26 votes.
Sitting member Malakai Tabar was running close on second place after the fifth exclusion with 6,542 votes and was followed by Sinai Brown with 4,286 votes.
It is understood the absolute majority after the fifth exclusion was 16,643 votes.