PNG Electoral Commissioner , Simon Sinai. FILE PICTURE
By: Samantha Solomon
The Local level government elections will be delayed if the census does not complete on time.
Electoral commissioner Simon Sinai said the two national events must not be done at the same time. If the census is not completed by July, the Electoral Commission will defer the LLG election for up to month.
“I’ll come back to the media if there is anything to do with or to delay. There are laws that allows for us to delay the elections for maybe one or two months later so we are actually monitoring the census and if they delay then will have no choice but to push it back maybe a week or a month” Sinai said.
Mr Sinai said the census and elections had different functions and some people had been confused by having the two so close together.
“The aim and targets are different, and so we are actually trying to target the voters that are 18 years and above census is counting everyone.”
He said it was expected the census would be complete in June, but due to administrative issues they are still counting. He said After the census is complete there would be enough time to complete the elections.However Mr Sinai said in an event recently , said where changes need to be made they will take it.
“In the event that we see some administrative hiccups or something that that we need to responsi more responsible and that is required for us to prepare properly than will come back to the media and let us know that there are some situations that we need to prepare and delay the elections” said Sinai.
