IT IS UNCONSTITUTIONAL

 

Opposition Leader Belden Namah: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 new electorates may have breached the constitution.

NAMAH GOES TO COURT

 

By THIERRY LEPANI of Post-Courier 

THUNDER and lightning. Fire breathing Opposition leader Belden Namah is at it again.

He is racing around the short track from the National Parliament to the National and Supreme Court in Waigani seeking legal interpretation on the newly effected 13 seats in the National Parliament.

Upset that the Government has approved 13 new electorates with 7 to be contested in the upcoming NGE 2022, Namah, the belligerent Vanimo Green MP, is not letting that get away easily.

He believes the Constitution has been breached again. And the people have been fooled by another ill advised decision. 

Mr Namah, known for his many referrals, will be seeking a stay order from the Courts to halt the creation of 13 new electorates as he feels it has breached the constitution and is ill-planned.

He said the announcement by Prime Minister James Marape that of the 13 new electorates, 7 would be contested this year and the remaining 6 in 2027, was a gross violation of the Constitution as there shouldn’t be a selection of which electorates that can go into elections and which can’t.

Mr Namah staunchly opposed the creation of the new electorates as he believed the move was made in haste, and opposed the 7 electorates heading into elections just one month away.

Opposition team members.

“I expect the stay order to be filed by Friday or at the very latest on Monday,” he said yesterday.

“Only seven of the new electorates are approved to stay within the Constitutional provision for the number of seats in Parliament to be no more than 120.”

“But the Constitution is breached already in the creation of the thirteen new electorates, not those that will be fully operational.”

Mr Namah’s argument relies on alleged breached to Section 35 (1) Open Electorates of the Organic Law on National and Local Level Government Elections, which states: “The number of open electorates shall be as determined by the Boundaries Commission but in no case shall the number of open electorates be less than 110 or more than 120.”

Said Mr Namah; “Parliament’s decision paves the way for a failed 2022 National General Elections because it names 13 electorates of having been created but left 6 out of the coming elections. By leaving 6 electorates out in 2022 NGE is unconstitutional.”

With the last nationwide census carried out in 2011, Mr Namah said this also opened the door for legal breaches because the Electoral Boundaries Report relied upon outdated figures.

“The formula relied upon to create new electorates requires official census population figures,” he said.

“That is mandatory provision. The EBC used ten year old census figures from 2011 and guess work to split and create the 13 new electorates.”