Half of Morobe to begin counts

 By JUNIOR UKAHA

HALF of the 568 ward councils in Morobe have completed polling and are into the counting stages, election manager Simon Sinai said yesterday. 

Sinai said around 300 wards were in the polling process and would join the others by the end of this week to have their votes counted. 

“Everything looks good. By the end of next week all the presidents of the 33 LLGs would have been declared,” he said.

“We had a few problems like the voters’ names not on the electoral roll and quarrels among scrutineers of candidates but these are normal issues experienced during elections.” 

Sinai said the Buang local level government was the first to have completed counting for all its 13 wards and the president’s seat.

He said despite being a woman, Buang assistant returning officer Winnie Nakea had done a fine job.

In the Wau-Bulolo Urban LLG polling was completed on Saturday but counting has not started because of complaints regarding names on the electoral rolls by disgruntled supporters of candidates.

Of the 18 wards in the Menyamya LLG, 14 have been declared, while four wards and the president’s seats are yet to be declared.

Sinai said he had yet to get a full update on the progress of elections for individual wards because of the distances and communication issues.

“Counting for the Lae LLG is held at the Polytechnical Institute while counting for Ahi is held at the Ahi LLG office,” Sinai said.

He admitted updating the electoral rolls was still an appalling task for the Electoral Commission and said they hoped to tidy everything up in the future so that instances of missing and ghost names could be resolved. 

Sinai said Umi-Atzerea LLG and  Salamaua LLG had declared 11 wards while Finschhafen urban LLG declared six and Yabim LLG declared eight.