LLG elections extended – The National

By LUKE KAMA
THE 2019 local level government elections have been extended for one week to allow for the completion of voting and counting in all remote areas, an official says.
Department of Provincial and Local Level Government Affairs secretary Dickson Guina told The National last Friday that the 6,000-plus writs for the elections were supposed to be returned to the Minister for Inter-government Relations Pila Niningi last Friday.
“But some wards in rural communities throughout the country have yet to complete their polling and counting.”
So the Electoral Commission has requested for an extension of one week,” he said.
He said Niningi had extended the deadline for the return of writs to Friday, Aug 2.
“(This is to allow the commission) to complete polling and counting for all the wards in the country,” Guina said.
The original schedule was for voting and counting to end last Thursday and all writs were to have been returned on Friday.

***Counting officials doing the final count for the Bitarebarebe Ward at the KVULLG while the scrutineers are keeping close eye on thm. – Nationalpic by ROSELYN ELLISON***

There are 6385 wards in the 331 local level governments around the country.
Guina thanked the people, civil servants and commission officials for the overall successful LLG elections.
“Generally, the LLG election has been very successful in all provinces except for few small incidents in some places,” he said.
“The wards councillors are important (as they) are on the ground to provide leadership in the communities.
“After a long delay, we are happy that the new government under Prime Minister James Marape has given the funding and support to conduct this very important election.”
Electoral Commissioner Patilias Gamato could not be reached for a comment yesterday but said earlier they had to work “under a tight timeline to deliver the LLG elections”.
The elections scheduled for earlier this year had to be deferred because of a case filed in the Supreme Court raising questions about its legality.
The court imposed a stay order but later lifted it allowing the exercise to proceed.
The elections were for ward councilors only who will later elect their council presidents, unlike before when the presidents were also elected by the people.
The National Capital District and Bougainville did not take part. The Government allocated an extra K20 million to the budgeted K100 million for the exercise.