Desmond Tsianai says that OBEC is trying to reach where the voters are. Photo: RNZI / Johnny Blades
With less than two weeks remaining until the Bougainville election, the Office of the Bougainville Electoral Commission (OBEC) is confident it is well prepared.
The autonomous Papua New Guinea region goes to the polls on Thursday, 4 September, to elect 45 members of parliamewnt and and a president from a field of 404 candidates.
RNZ Pacific spoke with the Electoral Commissioner Desmond Tsianai.
(This transcript has been edited for brevity and clarity.)
Desmond Tsianai: In terms of our preparations so far, we've managed to complete our electoral roll update exercise. We're now in the process of finalising the roll and having the roll printed, [and] hopefully this week, have them ready for dispatch to the polling stations across the region.
Don Wiseman: Will there be an opportunity for people to change information on the roll at this point, or is it too late?
DT: We've done that. We've completed what we call the public display and objection exercise. We've completed the exercise on the ninth and then last week we were into data entry, doing the final entry and amendments to the details of voters that were collected from the field during the public display and objection period.
We've given the opportunity to the voters to have a look at the roll that was displayed in various locations within the wards. And then we've received the feedback, the forms and the preliminary roles from the field, and we've done the data entry.
DW: So were there many changes that had to be made?
DT: The changes were mainly around correction of the names [and] date of birth; there were a few that were omitted from the raw and we were able to reinstate those names to be in the final roll. Those were the only changes that were made. And of course, the objection by voters to the names of certain people on the roll.
DW: Yes. So how many did that affect?
DT: We're currently doing the finalisation of that. Unfortunately, I don't have that at hand to give you that, but I can say that we've done the display and objection period, and we've been able to do the necessary changes in correction to the number of names, the number of names that were on the preliminary roll.
DW: Okay. Now, because you're having a one day poll, it requires a lot of staff, doesn't it? So have you managed to get the hundreds of staff that you will need?
DT: Yes, we'll be deploying 540 plus polling teams to all the wards, and because it's a one day polling model, we've been able to increase the number of teams to reach certain places that were geographically challenged in previous elections.
So, as much as possible OBEC is trying to reach where the voters are, and in cases where geography is a challenge, we've been able to allocate additional teams to that particular ward.
DW: You've got 540 teams, as you say, how many people in each team?
DT: Around seven people in each team.
DW: So you're talking what 3000 staff you'll need for this election.
DT: Exactly.
DW: And you've got that sort of number? You've got them?
DT: Yes, we've managed to recruit the election officials for the polling exercise.
We've also recruited temporary election workers for the accounting, the scrutiny of the ballots, in which we will do the counting, after the polling.
DW: You've got enough money to cover all that. The reason I ask is, it's always been a problem for the national body, hasn't it, covering some of these expenses?
DT: Yes, that is correct. Fortunately, the ABG [Autonomous Bougainville Government], seeing the significance of this election, was able to allocate enough funding, I would say, sufficient funding for us to complete the election, taking into account all the number of people we will be engaging, both during polling and counting.
DW: All right, so it's getting very close, and you haven't encountered any problems, any issues in the in the various constituencies around the region.
DT: So far, since the issue of writs this year, we've received a few correspondence from people across the region stating that there was some disturbance in the communities, and that's basically between candidates and political parties.
Otherwise, in terms of security, we haven't heard any concern from the security. But OBEC is vigilant, and we're preparing for anything that may arise during polling or counting.
We continue to liaise with our police personnel on the ground just to make sure everything is in order and when the situation arise, the police are there to handle any situation.
