Transcript
JB: The Electoral Commission says that all sensitive election materials are now in the provinces and being sorted out for distribution to each electorate in preparation for polling. These include ballot-papers, candidate posters, Polling Schedules; Indelible Inks for voters to show they have voted, and of course electoral rolls. These election materials have been dispatched to all regions of PNG, according to the commission, by the Australian Defence Force with its C-130 military aircraft. The PNGDF Air Transport Squadron has also been assisting in this.
BRD: What's the feel like on the ground, in terms of how harmonious this election may be?JB: A little bit tense I'd have to say. There's a lot of words, accusations being slung around between opponents, a stream of invective on social media, and a couple of sitting MPs have commented how this is the nastiest they've experienced in a PNG campaign. That could be a mark of the dissastisfaction with the performance of parliamentarians. Or also maybe a sign of how much social media has raised the volume of public discourse. But certainly here in the National Capital District, there are suggestions of possible rigging, violence or intimidation at play. Police Commissioner Gary Baki confirmed there is an open investigation into four NCD candidates following the leak of chat logs on social media. Now these four, according to a series of screen grabs doing the rounds, have been allegedly caught in conversation plotting to use fake ballot papers, intimidate voters and even plans for violence against incumbent NCDC governor Powes Parkop. But to look at the screenshots that are being circulated in social media, which allegedly incriminate the group of candidates, it almost looks too obvious, as if there was a set-up at play. We'll have to wait and find out what comes of the investigation, but the four candidates held a press conference to say that their Facebook accounts were hacked and messages sent without them knowing.
BRD: Ballot papers are an area of concern to a number of candidates.
JB: Yes that's right. Ever since the EC announced that the ballot papers were being printed in Indonesia, there's been a lot of suspicion that they will be tampered with, claims that there was a surplus amount printed and that some of these will be used later to fabricate results, a range of allegations. And just
People's Progress Party (PPP) leader and Kavieng MP Ben Micah has called on the Prime Minister Peter O'Neill and Electoral Commission Patilias Gamato to immediately conduct an investigation into reports of ballot papers being tempered with and the election be rigged. He says he has evidence of some candidates holding onto the printed ballot papers. He warned that were this type of rigging to proceed the country might QUOTE: go up in flames if this problem was not addressed. So I think there is a pressure on the commissioner to disprove some of that. But it is quite traditional, or typical, for the Electoral Commissioner to come under most intense pressure over preparation for the election. So far he has said any evidence of tampering with election materials must be presented to the police.
