7 Mar 2005

Pacific Islands Forum to support Bougainville election

8:46 am on 7 March 2005

The Pacific Islands Forum is waiting to hear from the Papua New Guinea Government about what sort of help it needs for the upcoming elections on Bougainville.

Bougainville is to hold a poll starting on May 20th to elect its first autonmous government.

The Forum has offered to help with preparations on work such as the rolls which are being completely redone this month.

One of the Forum's two deputy secretarys-general, Iosefa Maiava, says another option would be to provide monitors for the poll.

"We will also look at the possibility of doing it jointly with the Commonwealth Secretariat. There's some discussion on that - we have to come to an agreement on how that can be managed but that is one possibility."