Papua New Guinea begins voting in key elections
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Loading... - Asuka Chiba
- 04 Jul 2022
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Voters in Papua New Guinea are heading to the polls to cast ballots on the first day of voting in the country’s national elections.
Some 10,000 police, army and corrections services personnel were mobilised for Monday’s vote. Australia also deployed 130 soldiers with transport aircraft to help secure the lengthy voting process across the country of nine million, which has a history of corruption and election-related killings.
Voting is scheduled to take up to 18 days and an outcome is not expected to be clear until August.
“We want transparency, we want accountability and above all, we want a safe, fair and secured polling period,” Prime Minister James Marape said after voting.
Election rivalries can quickly spill over into bloodshed in Papua New Guinea, especially in the remote and mountainous provinces.
During the last vote in 2017, Australian National University monitors documented more than 200 election-related killings and widespread “serious irregularities”.
This year, 15 election-related deaths have already been recorded, according to Papua New Guinea police.
In the highlands province of Enga, a candidate was charged with shooting and killing the supporter of a political rival on June 26, police told local media.
Marape conceded in an end-of-campaign message that there was still “rampant corruption in all strata of public service”.
The prime minister, who has promised to make Papua New Guinea the “richest Black Christian nation”, said there had been a lack of development despite the country’s “God-given” resources. Read More…
