Fingers not crossed for revised law before elections

Registrar Dr Alphonse Gelu

By MATTHEW VARI

Sunday, November 20, 2016 (Sunday Chronicle, PNG)

A CLEARLY annoyed Registrar of Political Parties and Candidates, Dr Alphonse Gelu, has said that the registry is not keeping its fingers crossed to have the revised Organic Law on the Integrity of Political Parties and Candidates (OLIPPAC) to be passed before the 2017 elections.

He said the anticipation for the revised law, that continues to inch its way onto the floor of parliament, since being approved by NEC in 2014, will be on the end of 2017 forward, which he said the registry would then have to go through the gazzetal process again.

“We are not keeping our fingers crossed to what will happen in 2017, what we are doing now is that we are anticipating that it might be after the elections, and if it is going to be after the election we will have to go back to the drawing board as the process requires.”

“The advantage that we have is that we already have a document in place, it is just a matter of us getting it back to the process of gazettal and then getting back into parliament. I do not know whether we still need to get it before NEC for its endorsement before it gets to parliament that is something that we need to find out after the elections in 2017.”

“I am very disappointed, this law was approved by NEC in 2014, March of 2014- we had the whole of 2014, whole of 2015, and the whole of 2016.”

Gelu said as the head of a government body, who has worked very hard to put the revised organic law together, the reason why parliament did not get the law through still baffled him- considering that it is the OLIPPAC that is responsible for the changed political landscape in the country.

“I have to say this on the outset; this is the law that totally transformed the political landscape in Papua New Guinea,” the registrar pointed out.

“Now everyone is going on about political stability, the term political stability came out from this law, not any law.”

“The Supreme Court has made its decision, and has responsible lawmakers now they have to do the right thing to go through the law and pass through the floor, but unfortunately the government and parliament have failed to do that so for us we just have to wait and see.”

“In fact this is what the law process is about and we have no say now that we’ve done it and given it to parliament.”