By MATTHEW VARI
Sunday, January 10, 2016 (Sunday Chronicle, PNG)
His comments came in light of reports that the government was forcing the hand of the commission to revert to the former system through decreased funding in light of the looming general elections next year.
With budget documents showing a downward spiral in the election commission funds at a time when they should be increasing- Mr Polye added that the motives were clear.
He added that the many issues associated with the change to the LPV system would reoccur or in other instances increase at a time when the country was set to host a global meet in 2018.
“It is very easy and the way that the prime minister is treating the electoral commission, in particular the review of the electoral roll, you can draw that conclusion,” Polye alleged.
“Next year the election is important and in 2018 we will have the APEC meet and as a host of such a vital international meet you would want to have an election that is peacefully run, democratically conducted, it is good, the results are good, no petitions, no infighting in government, so that when the new government comes in it comes in smoothly to prepare for the 2018 APEC meet.”
“The way the prime minister and his government is conducting itself is creating a disaster situation where there will be a lot of fights with all the issues associated with voters not finding their names on the electoral roll.”
“Those foreign visitors who would like to come the year after for the summit will hear all these negative stories and it will have a lot of negative repercussions in this country.”
He added, however, that if the government decides to bring back the first past the post system, the electoral commission cannot just make that decision.
“Under whatever circumstance if they are pressured to do so in order to cut extra expenditure incurred in terms of second or the third preferential counting that takes place in terms of the logistics and of cost.”
“That would be forced upon them to make recommendations to the executive government to make a decision as to change from the LPV to the First Past the Post system.”
“But that is a setback plan because what LPV does is a fair, extensive, and broad representation of support to a leadership. That is the overriding advantage compared to the first past the post.”
Polye said that if the decision was to be made it would be a backward step for the country.
“If people do block voting where just one constituency just votes for one candidate in the electorate and other constituencies have many candidates- then just one constituency out of all the other has the advantage to win, which is not a fair representation of all the voters in the electorate.”
“These are the kind of representation where you have people who are elected not necessarily representing the whole district and when services are delivered it is all lopsided.”
“I would like to discourage the commission and government to revert back to the old system.”
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