Patilias Gamato

Electoral Commissioner Patilias Gamato says intending candidates can collect the deposit slips for election nomination fees at PNGEC Finance Branch at the headquarters in Port Moresby, and in their respective provincial electoral offices.

Electoral Commissioner Patilias Gamato said the fee remains the same after parliament failed to do the second and third readings to amend the Organic Law on National and LLG Elections. 

“The proposed amendments are still the property of parliament and will await the new parliament to deliberate on.”

The coalition Government was adamant to increase the nomination fee to K10,000, claiming it will support the PNG Electoral Commission run the elections and also stop ‘traim lak’ candidates from contesting.

The Issue of Writs will be on April 20, followed by candidates’ nomination, campaign and election period in June.  

Electoral Commissioner Patilias Gamato revealed that a total of 4068 intending candidates had filled and submitted the candidate bio-data form (Form 29).

According to statistics released by the PNG Electoral Commission, the Highlands Region registered the highest number of intending candidates with a progressive total of 1719.

Followed by Momase with 1017, Southern with 998 and New Guinea Islands with only 334.

Electoral Commissioner Patilias Gamato said he is quite pleased with the tremendous effort put in by temporary electoral workers in updating the roll.

He said the preliminary roll will be used for nominations when the 2017 election writs are open on April 20.

“What this means is that the process of updating the 2017 roll (will) continue until all verification is completed right across the country,” he said.

Currently, the preliminary roll is displayed publicly in all electorates for voter verification and objection.

The election materials were printed in Indonesia.

Electoral Commissioner Patilias Gamato confirmed to Loop PNG that “ballot papers arrived on Tuesday and have been cleared.

 “They will be under tight guard by Police and Army in a secured place.”

Because of the security protocol, the PNG Electoral Commission will not disclose the location where the ballot papers are being kept for safe keeping for voting in June.   

Gamato singled out the practise of allowing one person to mark ballot papers on behalf of other eligible voters to stop.

He said a tough stance will be taken against electoral officers who do not adhere to rules and laws governing elections.

Meanwhile, 10 countries, including Australia, New Zealand and United States have expressed interests to send observers to monitor this year’s National Elections.    

Gamato said assistance will be sought from the Australian Government to help in transportation of electoral materials.    

During a National Alliance Party event in which Gamato was invited to give an update on the commissions preparations, he revealed that they were currently addressing the issue as some of the RO’s and ARO’s decided to contest the elections while a few have passed on.

PNGEC Chief Commissioner, Patilias Gamato said during the launch of the Plan today that PNGEC has already started implementing the logistics plan.

“This is a working plan therefore issues like procurement of ballot papers, big ticket items, polling schedules are all contained in the plan and the plan cannot be read in isolation from the polling schedule,” says Gamato.

He says the polling schedule is another plan in terms of the actual date and the place of polling which also includes the security plans that will soon be launched by our disciplinary forces.

 This is the first time that such a plan has been launched to support the 2017 National Elections.

Clear directions from the Government were to make sure that the Elections are free and fair and that they are conducted in a cost effective manner.

The directions were a result of a number of Observer Reports in the seven elections that the country has had so far.

Basil said: “We understand that the Prime Minister is directly controlling Electoral Commission.

“The proposed amendments regarding the National Elections that came before Parliament are not from the Electoral Commissioner, it’s from the Prime Minister himself and the ruling Party.

“We believe that the Prime Minister is behind the printing of ballot papers overseas.”

Meantime, Electoral Commissioner Patilias Gamato recently confirmed with Loop PNG that their staff are supervising the printing in Indonesia and it is under control.