By CHRISTOPHER YANDAWAI
A total of 42 candidates that have successfully been nominated to run for the Moresby North-West (MNW) by-election will have to wait for another week to receive their candidate numbers.
This comes after the cancellation of the program of drawing the order of candidates’ numbers that was scheduled to take place today at 12pm at Boroko Electoral Commission office.
All 42 candidates including the Returning Officer, David Wakias and members of the Electoral Commission fronted the Boroko EC office as early as 12pm today for the program, however, the program was further delayed for another two and half hours upon the direction from the Electoral Commissioner’s office.
The direction from the Electoral Commissioner’s office was understood to be given upon the advice from the Pandemic Controller David Manning.
At around 3pm, staff from the National Control Center (NCC) led by NCC Deputy Incident Manager, Dr Melinda Susapu arrived at the EC Boroko office to deliver the Controller’s directive.
Dr Susapu told the candidates that the Controller directed for the drawing of the order of the candidates’ numbers be deferred for a week.
The reason being that given the increasing number of COVID-19 cases in the country, the Controller wants the NCC team while liaising with the electoral commission staff need to put in place a Security Operation Procedures (SOP) before the candidate numbers are issued.
Dr. Susapu said these protocols will guide the candidates during the campaigning periods in the lead up to the polling dates.
The Controller’s direction didn’t go well with the candidates as they waited for almost two hours to have their numbers issued today.
However, Returning Officer David Wakias told the candidates to comply with the direction of the Controller which the candidates finally agreed to.
The Draw Order of the Candidates’ numbers that was scheduled to take place today was therefore being deferred to next week Thursday.
