Nominations close for two LLGs in Lae

National, Normal
Source:

The National, Thursday 13th June 2013

 By ELLEN TIAMU

CANDIDATES in Lae Urban and Ahi Rural local level governments (ARLLG) filed all their nominations yesterday – unaware that the deadline had been extended to tomorrow.

Morobe assistant election manager Fredah Joses said Inter-Government Relations Minister Leo Dion had extended the deadline by another two days.

Candidates and the Electoral Commission had been concerned that some could face difficulties in filing nominations because of where they lived and the public holiday on Monday. 

A check by The National at the nomination venues in Lae, Lae City Council for the Lae Urban seats and Ahi local level government chamber at Malahang for Ahi Rural yesterday afternoon showed that ballot boxes had been allocated to candidates.    

Many candidates and officials were unaware of the extension to the nomination deadline.

A candidate for the lord mayor’s seat in Lae Urban, said “the instruction is late and anyway, there are 47 nominees already and that’s too many”.

Incumbent Ahi president David Sam Agi said at Malahang: “If you had told us earlier we would have allowed for the extra time but numbers are already being given out and we can’t stop now.”

One female candidate is contesting the Ahi president seat while four others are contesting seats in four of the 17 ward council seats. 

Electoral Commission officials said nominations in the two areas closed without any major incident.