THE acting Electoral Commissioner Simon Sinai has advised the disgruntled scrutineers and candidates that the quality checks for the Port Moresby North-West counting will go forward without any more delays.
He said there was no court order given to Electoral Commission to stop the Moresby North-West by- election count.
“The Court of disputed returns is where the candidates should submit their petition.
“Time is also against us and therefore we will commence with the quality checks, as the return of writs will be on the 24th of June,” he said.
Meanwhile, all 136 ballot boxes from the counting centres were brought to Sir John Guise Stadium for quality checks and elimination process.
Out of these ballot boxes, one from ward 10 was disputed by the scruitineers and was set aside by the Returning Officer.
The total eligible voters on the Moresby North West Electoral Roll is 89,500.During the one day polling on Friday 4th of June 2021, only 58, 661 voters cast their votes. The absolute majority now stands at 28,873.
Mr Sinai further clarified that so far no candidates has met the absolute majority mark and therefore they will proceed to do quality checks and elimination.
There will be a slight change in the figures once the quality check is done as the counting officials will be re-checking and may pick errors at the primary votes count.
“I would like to appeal to all voters, supporters and candidates for Moresby North-West electorate to resort to genuine and updated information released from the office of the PNG Electoral Commission and refrain from misleading public and false reports that may cause mayhem amongst them,” Mr Sinai said.
The counting for first preferences vote was completed on Monday June 14, 2021. The top five (5) candidates in the race are as follows:
- Lohia Boe Samuel 16,985
- Joe Tonde 8,848
- Thaddeus Kambanei 5,604
- Sengol A Parkop 5,433
- Walter Yangomina 3,374