Referendum commission outlines voting criteria

The National National

THE Bougainville Referendum Commission (BRC) is aware of public discussions around the criteria for the enrolment of voters, chief referendum officer Mauricio Claudio says.
Claudio said the criteria for enrolment was based on several different elements of the legal framework.
He said as the BRC only came into existence last year and they were not involved in the drawing up of the framework.
He said the enrolment criteria for the referendum was drawn from:

  • Section 315 of the Bougainville Peace Agreement 2001;
  • Schedule 1, section 23 of the Organic Law on Peace building in Bougainville – Autonomous Bougainville Government and Bougainville Referendum 2002;
  • Section 7(1) of the Bougainville Constitution; and,
  • Section 52(1) of the Organic Law on National and Local-level Government Elections.

Claudio said the Bougainville Peace Agreement stated that the “eligibility to vote in the referendum will be the same as for national elections in Bougainville”.
He said this section of the Peace Agreement was operationalised by the Organic Law.
A Joint Supervisory Body meeting on June 29 2018, the two Governments agreed on the links with Bougainville that a voter must have to be eligible to enrol from outside of Bougainville. For residents of Bougainville this meant they should meet the same criteria as those to register in PNG national elections:
The criteria for those living in Bougainville and non-residents are:

  • Must have been living in Bougainville for at least the past six months prior to enrolment;
  • must have links to Bougainville by birth, adoption, marriage or clan;
  • were born on or before Oct 12, 2001;
  • are a PNG citizen; and,
  • Are entitled to vote in PNG national elections.