No room for flexibility of voting dates, says MP

BY JEFFREY ELAPA
Bougainville Regional MP Joe Lera says there is no room for flexibility on target dates for the June 15 referendum.
He said this yesterday when launching the National Research Institute’s report on status and implementation of the Bougainville Peace Agreement (BPA) and implications for referendum yesterday.
Lera said as agreed to in the BPA in 2001, the people of Bougainville would vote for their political future through a referendum to be conducted on June 15. He said the BPA called for weapons disposal, an autonomy government to be established and a referendum to be held 10-15 years after the first election for the Bougainville House of Representatives and the president.
“We must support and ensure that the referendum is well funded, well prepared, and well administered so that every eligible Bougainvillean is allowed to express free choice of their political future,” Lera said.
“In other words, every Bougainvillean is allowed to express or vote freely, and without harassment and intimidation.
“Only then will the results reflect the free will of the people.”
Lera said the referendum must be well-resourced and well administered so that people of Bougainville could feel that the results truly reflected their collective will.
Meanwhile, the report found some shortcomings in the implementation of the three pillars of the BPA: Weapons disposal, autonomy and referendum.
Research was carried out by Dr Kylie McKenna from the University of Sydney and the NRI.
The report stated that significant achievements included the constitutional arrangements for autonomy and referendum, implementation of the waste disposal programmes, the first Autonomous Bougainville Government (ABG) election that followed with the establishment of Government structures. While some of these progress have been noted, progress on a number of BPA provisions were evaluated as unsatisfactory.