Update on polling progress in Bougainville

Pacific's emerging leader Joe Lera votes. New Dawn FM Photo

Polling is currently underway in all regions and special voting centres in Bougainville and on mainland PNG and the acting electoral commissioner for Bougainville George Manu is pleased that polling according to reports has been generally peaceful and people are conducting themselves appropriately.

With Bougainville just into its third day of polling, it is now scheduled that polling have been completed at 153 polling places, 133 in North, 60 in Central and 148 in South Bougainville.

According to Mr. Manu, data from the field continues to flow in so these figures are provisional and may be subjected to change.

When giving the polling progress update during the third daily media conference this afternoon, the acting electoral commissioner revealed that for today alone, polling was scheduled to have been underway at 182 polling places with polling in 71 places in North Bougainville, 41 polling places in Central Bougainville, 62 polling places in South Bougainville, 3 special polling places located at the Bel Isi Park in Buka town and the OBEC officers in Arawa and Buin for those living outside of their constituencies and 5 polling places for Bougainvilleans living outside of Bougainville in Port Moresby, Lae, Rabaul, Madang and Goroka.

He said polling for South Nasioi is Central Bougainville is scheduled to be completed today while polling while polling for Kongara and Kokoda is scheduled to be completed tomorrow.

He added that polling for Bougainvilleans living outside of Bougainville is also scheduled to be completed tomorrow and he is therefore urging all enrolled Bougainvilleans on mainland PNG to visit one of the five special polling places before 4pm PNG time tomorrow.

For tomorrow, polling is scheduled to take place across 30 constituencies, 14 in North, 7 in Central and 9 in South Bougainville with the additional 3 regional special voting places and 5 special polling places in Papua New Guinea.

Mr. Manu would like also to remind the people of Bougainville that throughout the polling period, OBEC will be issuing additional radio broadcast daily at 9:30 pm Bougainville Standard Time on NBC Bougainville and at 6:30 pm Bougainville Standard Time on New Dawn FM.

Present also for this third daily media conference was the United States Ambassador to Papua New Guinea Walter North.

His Excellency arrived in Bougainville today to observe the elections. New Dawn FM