Weak political decisions for election

WE are already seeing ballot boxes being allegedly tampered with as is the case with the Moresby North East electorate in the nations’ capital and then we have the story on containers carrying ballot boxes ending up all over the place up in the Highlands as if it were any ordinary freight.
Than the story about the arrest of people with a significant amount of cash and gun in Hela.
Meanwhile, some provinces are yet to commence polling as scheduled due to logistics not being in place.
We are also encountering ballot paper shortages in places where new electorates were created before the end of the last Parliament.
That particular passage of law enabling the creation of new electorates in certain provinces was bound to experience so many logistical nightmares because so many other enabling administrative arrangements needed significant amount of time in order to facilitate a smooth roll out, however there wasn’t time to upgrade and absorb these alterations into the system.
These political decisions compounded the problems the Electoral Commission was facing with limited funding and yet expected to miraculously deliver an election incorporating the seven new electorates into the electoral framework.
If anything, its about time we shift from blaming the bureaucrats (the Electoral Commissioner and his officers) and blame the Government for not prioritising the common role update which for this election should have been done between 2020 and 2021.
Two days into the elections and we are experiencing unprecedented administrative and logistical nightmares throughout the country.
What credible reason can the government give to the people of PNG for failing to fund the EC with sufficient funds to prepare for this election? It certainly won’t be no money because we all know that there was plenty around for government to expedite and it has done that to the very end of it’s term.
The last government had every opportunity to deliver an election which could have made the Marape government a people centred government by giving every citizen this constitutional right to cast their votes. Yet again, so many people are being turned away from casting their votes and it appears to be happening in all provinces and at all polling stations.
With such maladministration of the electoral roll, the outcome of the election will be non-representative of the entire nation.

Francis Talu