Trawen: NEC decides on election

THE decision to hold direct elections of local level government presidents was made by the National Executive Council, Electoral Commissioner Andrew Trawen has clarified.
He said the NEC made the decision because it wanted the presidents’ election process to be standardised to reflect good governance.
He said there was a misunderstanding by people about this aspect of the forthcoming local level government elections.
“The government made the decision to have LLG presidents directly elected,” Trawen said in a statement.
“Neither the Electoral Commission nor I made any submission to the National Executive Council on the direct election of LLG presidents.”
He said under the law the minister responsible had the power to make exemptions and not the Electoral Commission.
Trawen added that he was misunderstood when he made an earlier statement that NEC had made the decision to have election of presidents by the people.
“I was only stating that some provincial leaders had objected to the direct election of LLG presidents.”
He had said the Minister for Inter-government Relations, Leo Dion, was considering advising the NEC to make exemptions to avoid problems on ground.