Disabled to have own polling booths

By SHIRLYN BELDEN
PEOPLE living with disabilities will now vote in the 2012 general election as a special group with separate polling booths, Electoral Commissioner Andrew Trawen says.
This will be the first time for Papua New Guinea to recognise people living with disabilities since the inaugural national election in 1977.
The Electoral Commission will use the 2012 election to pilot the initiative in the four urban centres – National Capital District, Lae, Mt Hagen and Kokopo. 
The programme will be rolled out to other provincial centres and rural villages in the next five years to fully involve all in the 2017 elections. 
“The commission feels that it is time people living with disabilities realised and exercised their rights to actively participate in the electoral process of this country,” Trawen said.
He said people with disabilities had been deprived of their rights for too long and they deserved to be counted as equals.
National Board for Disabled Persons chairman Brown Kapi said: “The government needs to know people with disabilities in order to plan well for them in the next five years like mobilising resources and distributing services for their needs”.
The initiative was from the Electoral Commission and partly funded by AusAID.
There will be separate polling booths for people with disabilities to avoid unnecessary intimidation and disturbance.
Mobile polling teams will assist with those who cannot walk.
Enrolment for registration started on Friday with a turnout of more than 30 people with disabilities living in NCD and the Motuan and nearby Central villages. 
Registration is open until next April.
Two people with walking disabilities, Timothy Harabe and Albert Gogob said they were happy with the initiative .
They said that was because they felt a sense of self-importance and recognition by the government.