Still confused about referendum

THE Bougainville Referendum Commission recently included non-Bougainvilleans who have lived in Bougainville for more than six months to participate in the upcoming Bougainville Referendum.
The inclusion of non-Bougainvilleans to vote during the referendum appeared in the recently issued BRC sanctioned pamphlets.
These pamphlets are also being disseminated by the National Research institute (NRI).
The general understanding is that those who are eligible to vote in the referendum are only Bougainvilleans who reside in Bougainville and those Bougainvilleans who reside outside of Bougainville.
This understanding is based on the law – The Bougainville Peace Agreement.
The Bougainville Constitution provides a guide in defining “who” a Bougainvillean is.
Under that Constitution, a person becomes a Bougainvillean if he or she is a Bougainvillean by birth or has a Bougainvillean spouse or is a child of a Bougainvillean, or a person adopted into a clan in Bougainville or who owns customary land in Bougainville.
One must understand that this referendum is different from the normal National and ABG Elections which allows non-Bougainvilleans who have lived in Bougainville for more than six months to cast their votes on which candidates they wish to vote for.
BRC must be properly advised that the laws for conducting a Bougainville Referendum process are entirely different from those that apply to the ABG and national elections although in both cases, the required voting age of 18 years and above still applies.
This referendum is the result of the Peace Agreement between Bougainvilleans and Papua New Guineans which allows exclusively Bougainvilleans to determine their future political status.
BRC needs to explain how it came up with this additional eligibility criteria.
BRC has a duty to collect collective views from Bougainvilleans before making any decisions particularly on the eligibility criteria.
This has not happened.
This criteria to include non-Bougainvilleans to vote in this upcoming referendum does not have a legal basis.
Even if the BRC has discretionally powers under the existing laws to determine its own voting criteria, there is no law that empowers the BRC to exercise its powers to come up with such a criteria.
BRC member and NRI director Dr Thomas Webster is urged to respond to this concern which Bougainvilleans are generally not happy with.

Joel Nava LLM (HONS)
NZ