Elections

The Election Training Workshop for journalist is organised by the PNG Electoral Commission and supported by the Australia Electoral Commission.

The three days’ workshop held outside of Port Moresby will end today.  

Deputy Electoral Commissioner Simon Sinai in his opening remarks on Monday, urged the participants to understand the electoral cycle to assist them when disseminating information to the public.

That was an appeal from deputy Electoral Commissioner Simon Sinai.

He was speaking at the PNG Electoral Commission run-election training for journalist.

"Media play a crucial role in keeping the necessary checks and balances and I believe you will do the same for the 2017 National Elections to ensure there is transparency and integrity in the whole election process," Sinai said.

"This is because misreporting and misinformation can lead to unrest and violence."

In  a highly competitive process,  participants from 22 provinces were selected from over 200 applicants and will be trained on critical national policy issues, parliamentary processes and campaign strategies from 6 to 13 March 2017 in Port Moresby.

With only three female MPs out of 111 in Papua New Guinea’s current parliament, women continue to be under-represented as political leaders and elected officials.

He says his decision will be made when there is sufficient support from the people and especially current parliamentarians for a new Government.

In a public statement in the media Sir Mekere said although he enjoys retirement from politics, he cannot ignore the plea of Papua New Guineans for him to re-enter politics.

“They all say you fixed it before, please come back and do it again.”

France, Germany and the Netherlands are holding elections later this year, and experts agree with former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden that Moscow will try to sway the results.

The voting infrastructure is expected to be relatively secure since all three countries use paper ballots.

But here's how Russian hackers (and others) could influence the outcome:

Phishing for dirt

Parliament will be in recess for the 2017 National Elections until the formation of the new government in September.

The main Bills to be addressed during this remaining parliament session will include the increased nomination fees and the reduced campaign period.

Prime Minister Peter O’Neill told Parliament in August last year that the election cost is increasing yearly and the PNG Electoral Commission must find a way to help subsidise the cost.

He said increasing the nomination fees for candidates is an area the government is looking into.   

Polye claimed that Prime Minister Peter O’Neill has appointed people from his own tribe and province to execute decision on self-interest and not the people.

He gave an example as to the Deputy Electoral Commissioner who is in charge of the operations in the 2017 elections was from the PM’s electorate and province.

“PM putting his own man in the Electoral Commission is not a good decision.

Opposition Leader Don Polye in a packed media conference today said the amended OLNLLGE will limit ability of many citizens to be candidates in the 2017 elections.

Polye, supported by other affiliated party secretaries argued that the proposed amended OLNLLGE will also limit the citizen’s rights to appeal against a corrupt election.

He further reiterated that the schedule for the proposed amendment was also tight.

His Treasurer Patrick Pruaitch delivered one yesterday when he presented this Government’s 5^th consecutive budget which is set at K12,965.4 million against a projected revenue envelope of K11,088.8 million.

This compares with an expenditure bill of K13,834 million in the recently passed 2016 Supplementary Budget after a K928 million was cut from the original budget to prevent a budget blow out. The revised revenue forecast in the Supplementary Budget was K11,722 million, slightly higher than the 2017 revenue forecast.

This is one of the key topics of training given to Political Party Executives at the Learning and Development Workshop in Port Moresby today.

Lotte Geunis, a Suva based Parliamentary Consultant with the United Nations Development Program, informed participants of the workshop on the importance of gender mainstreaming in political parties.

In an interview with Loop PNG, Geunis said intending women candidates find it difficult to run for seats and one of the reasons was because of the lack of endorsement.