July 22 D-day for Papua New Guineans

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PAPUA New Guineans are scheduled to cast their ballots starting July 9 to elect their leaders to form a Government for their country’s 11th Parliament.
They have, from today to July 22 to make their choice.
This year’s general election is expected to be hotly contested and voters will not be spoilt for choice to elect 22 provincial governors, 96 members representing “open” electorates (Members of Parliament or MPs).
In 2017, a total of 42 parties slugged it out but only 21 parties won seats with the People’s National Congress (PNC) emerging with the biggest number. PNC fielded 95 candidates and 29 won.
The other top five parties were the National Alliance, United Resources Party and Independents.
A total of 3,337 candidates, including Independents, contested.
This time around, the number of candidates is expected to exceed more than in 2017.
The counting and tallying of ballots start almost immediately on July 23 and the return of election writs is scheduled for July 29.
The election fever starts today with the nomination of candidates and Papua New Guineans will be kept on their edge throughout the 59 days of campaigning that ends on July 8.
In 2017, not a single woman in electoral history won a seat in the 111-member Parliament. A total of 167 women were nominated for 2017.
The election in 2012 saw a record three women elected to Parliament – Eastern Highlands Governor Julie Soso, Delilah Gore (Sohe) and Loujaya Kouza (Lae) but not a single of the incumbent was returned to Parliament in 2017.
Since independence and after nine general elections (including 2017), only seven women have been elected to Parliament in Papua New Guinea.
Most independent observers reported that 2017 was delivered on the back of significant funding, administrative and logistical challenges, including inclement weather, that hampered the PNG Electoral Commission’s ability to administer the election within the prescribed period.
Significant issues with the voter registration process were an unfortunate feature of the general election in 2017, with a large number of names missing from the electoral roll.
Most groups were disappointed that previous recommendations to improve the accuracy of the roll and to review constituency boundaries were not implemented by both the commission and previous Governments.
Prime Minister James Marape, under the PNC banner, was the first candidate to be declared the winner in 2017. He polled 30,192.