The man in the hot seat

MALUM NALU

THE last 19 months have been something of a whirlwind
time for Patilias Gamato.
In November 2015, just a few months after he’d been confirmed as Morobe administrator, the National Executive Council appointed him electoral commissioner to replace the old warhorse Sir Andrew Trawen.
For some it appeared like a mammoth task, but Gamato was pretty much unfazed at the time; he wasn’t a newbie to the game, having overseen many elections in Morobe before.
“I’ve observed 2002, 2007 and 2012 as chairman of the election steering committee of Morobe, so elections are not a new thing to me,” says Gammato.
So is 2017 the biggest challenge? “Not really,” Gamato says.
“It’s basically normally administration and management, and I’ve done that back in the (Morobe) province. “I ran the administration with 6000 public servants, including teachers, health workers, and a big budget.
“I have the experience, so I don’t see running the elections as a big challenge, except funding.”
Gamato, 50, a career Morobe public servant from Sapa village in Morobe Patrol Post, Huon district, is married with three children. He holds two degrees – a Master in Strategic Management and a Bachelor of Business Management and Administration, booth from the University of Papua New Guinea.
He started work with the Morobe administration in Lae in 1984 as a legal clerk with legendary lawyers Tracey Doherty and Manasupe Zurenuoc and worked his way up the system.
He was executive officer to three former provincial secretaries, was Lae district administrator from 1998-2002 under then Lae MP Bart Philemon, was deputy provincial administrator district services from 2002-2012, and deputy provincial administrator Infrastructure and Growth Centres from 2013-2015.
Now, 20 months later, on the eve of polling, Gamato is in a reflective mode as he talks about the final preparations before polling starts tomorrow.
“I’ve said in the past, the first thing we had to do was come up with strategies through what we call a National Logistics Plan. In the past, there wasn’t any such plan.
“All our activities were guided by that plan.
“In 2016, we started with the rollupdating, which was one of our major activities. The roll has been completed, and has been displayed for objections and verifications. The roll has now been
uploaded to our central database and we have printed out the rolls.
“The second thing was to come up with polling schedules, which have the place and dates where polling will take place. Our planning and preparations, especially in terms of our logistics arrangements, will be guided by the polling schedule.
“With the polling schedule, we know how many places across the country where polling will take place, so that materials will be delivered accordingly, especially the ballot papers.
“We are ready to conduct the election.” Gamato says that campaigning over the past eight weeks, unlike in the past, “has been low-key across the country”. “I’m happy about that as it shows that people are more educated,” he says. “I do not want to see violence and intimidation during election time. It’s important for people to respect each other.
“Our voting system, under Limited Preferential Voting, is such that the three choices have the same value.
They need to understand that and cast their votes properly. “If they only choose one, then it’s an invalid paper.
“We will provide the voting facilities, police will provide security, and I want to encourage people to go and freely vote, allow the democratic process to happen and let the ballot paper speak for itself.
“The ballot will chose the leaders so people should see it that way, go to polls freely, allow other to access polling stations and vote.”
After the election, Gamato and his staff will let their hair down and celebrate the commission’s 50th birthday.
“PNG Electoral Commission has reached 50 years of its operations, starting in 1967,” he says.
“We have come a long way. There have been reforms in the electoral  aws, improvements have been done and we have run nine elections.
“What we want to do is to celebrate that soon after the formation of the government.
“We want to deliver the next Parliament, and straight after that, we want to celebrate.”
Voting starts tomorrow and ends on Saturday July 8. The counting of votes begins on Sunday July 9 and that work is expected to be completed on July 23.