Election preparations in Manus are on target and the Electoral Commission has sent awareness materials into the province.
Manus Election Manager Sponsa Navi told Loop PNG today that awareness materials arrived last week and have been sent out to the Local Level Governments.
“We have already sent down materials to our officers in the LLGs for awareness,” he said.
Navi has also gone on air on the provincial NBC radio station to do awareness on the Limited Preferential Voting (LPV) system.
“Yes we are on target and the ballot papers are now here in Lorengau,” Navi stated.
He said campaigning in the province has been quiet with at least one or two candidates going out to the public to carry out awareness.
“Otherwise, it’s been ok in the province and all is going well and on par,” Navi added.
Prime Minister Peter O’Neill was in Lorengau yesterday to campaign for the two PNC candidates; Job Pomat, who is contesting the Manus Open seat, and Governor Charlie Benjamin.
Meanwhile, the ballot papers that were flown into Lorengau over the weekend (Saturday) remain under tight security at the Lorengau Police Station.
Campaigning will end on June 23 and polling starts the next day.
Manus has 60 candidates contesting the two seats in the province. Six women are among them, three for each seat.
Independent candidates for the Manus open seat stand at 19 out of the 34 who filed nominations.
In the Regional seat, 14 are independent candidates while 12 are running under political parties.