Election awareness in East Sepik

AWARENESS on a free and fair local level government (LLG) election is vital as it will impact people’s lives directly, East Sepik awareness steering committee member Tobby Nuriwia says.
Nuriwia said the East Sepik electoral commission felt that awareness should be carried out to educate people on the processes involved in the election to better prepare them.
He said the awareness would inform people – especially from the rural areas of East Sepik – that the elections would now progress after being deferred from the original date.
The awareness was a week-long programme initiated by the East Sepik electoral commission that was working with a team consisting of civil society organisations, community-based organisations, non-government organisations and the media to speak on the effect and impacts of the LLG election.
Wewak was the first centre to be visited during the weekend due to its population and Maprik town, the hub of the central Sepik region, was the second centre to be visited yesterday.
Maprik, with six LLGs, will be expecting more than 50,000 eligible voters and more than 50 nominees competing for the council seats in each LLG ward.
East Sepik retaining officer Thaddeus Ulapapik said the awareness was also to inform the people on the voting system that would be engaged during the election and most importantly to inform and educate interested nominees and candidates who would be participating.
The officer said one of the most important agendas was the introduced system of elected councillors deciding or selecting their council presidents.
“After each ward councilor is elected, they will decide or select their council presidents – hence it is important that people should know and be informed on the type of leaders they are voting.”