When will we have free, fair elections?

Letters

WHEN can Papua New Guinea have a free, fair and safe election?
Stakeholders involved in an election should be held accountable for allowing corruption.
Almost all elections held to date have been failures.
Successive governments continue to spend millions of kina on elections and election-related court battles as well as by-elections.
Candidates – candidates create avenues for corruption by facilitating haus sel with supplies of food and with undisclosed amounts of cash to the voters before elections.
Voters – the free and fair elections experienced during the first-past-the-post era has changed to votes in exchange for cash and goods when limited preferential voting was introduced.
All these is becoming a norm.
It is gradually becoming an election tradition.
Polling officials – they allow voters to queue up and vote against any name in the common roll creating avenues for double voting and unregistered voters to take advantage and, in turn, denying the rights of registered voters and vulnerable groups such as mothers, old and the disabled.
The election officials are aware of such activities but are tight lipped.
Disputes – disgruntled losing candidates take advantage of loopholes in the electoral laws to dispute the results in court.
Most of the affidavits used as evidences are in fact mentioned in the points above which they also were part of.
Let’s be real and accept the results.
All candidates and their scrutineers should be educated on election protocols and procedures.
This trend is getting complicated.
The Government needs to intervene now.
I’m appealing to my fellow citizens to be responsible and stop entertaining corruption for a better PNG.
We need to create a better society to live in.
We owe it to our children.
Pause for a moment and think about where we are navigating our beautiful ship floating on a sea of oil and gas to.
Stop entertaining corruption and work towards eradicating it.

Joeggy,
NCD