The quality of the conduct and management of elections in Papua New Guinea has deteriorated in the 2022 national elections. This was revealed in an elections observers report presented by Transparency International Papua New Guinea (TIPNG) last week at the election seminar in Port Moresby.
TIPNG was among other observers engaged to observe the 2022 national election. In the report that was presented TIPNG highlighted areas that needs improvement for the future, and it is focused on providing evidence sharing based practices to the Electoral Commission and the Government for interventions to promote transparency and integrity within the National Elections.
Chairman of TIPNG Peter Aitsi said they are pleased to have the newly established Special Parliamentary Committee for Elections which is chaired by the Governor for East Sepik Allan Bird to look into the report and hopefully take onboard recommendations and Initiate reforms.
Governor Bird said it took many years for the committee to be approved by the Government and thanked the Marape-Rosso Government for making it possible.
"In January, the Government will appear before the committee to handover their reports and be subject to questions related to the conduct of the elections if the committee deems it necessary and the general public as well as academics will also be invited to raise their concerns. Then we will proceed on to all provinces of the country to see how the elections were conducted according to the observer’s report," Governor Bird said.
Electoral Commissioner Simon Sinai thanked Governor Allan Bird for taking the initiative and leadership in recognizing the elections in the country for the first time. Mr Sinai said this will give the people of the country the freedom and hope that there will be improvements in future elections.
"We must know that there are processes and procedures in place and there are people controlling and managing the system so when the system starts letting lose people will take advantage of the system for their own agendas. Those are some of the issues relating to the election but now with the observers report we will start incorporating and integrating their recommendations into our operational setup," Sinai said.
