PNG NATIONAL GENERAL ELECTIONS 2022: THE STRANGE CASE OF THE DISAPPEARING WRIT!

 

AMAZING HOW THE WRITS DISAPPEARED

Peter O'Neill on the campaign trail in Manus Province.

UNBELIEVABLE but a true mystery.

Former Prime Minister and MP-elect Peter O'Neill has won the Ialibu Pangia seat for the last three terms.

Every time he won, the returning officer was always on hand with the writ for O'Neill to sign to legitimize his election.

However on Tuesday night, the inevitable happened. O'Neill retained his seat by a first count landslide victory.

His popularity was magnetic as ever and his status remains at cult levels attracting voters, followers and supporters in all shapes and sizes.

The election officer Ronald Rambu was on hand to declare O'Neill as duly re-elected Ialibu Pangia Open Member of Parliament. 

There was only one little niggle at the counting centre at the Momei Oval.

Mysteriously, Rambu did not have the writs for O'Neill to sign and for him to witness.

Rambu could not find the absent writ. It was nowhere near Ialibu Pangia, an electorate in the oil and gas rich Southern Highlands Province. 

Even if they searched the whole of Southern Highlands, they would have never found the missing writ.

A PNC campaign rally in Lae, Morobe Province.

Somehow, it had vanished into the thin air of the Las Papua plains.

O'Neill's patience was tested. He was left wondering how could the writ be missing? 

The answer came 24 hours later: the writ for Ialibu Pangia was in the capital Port Moresby, a two hours plane ride away on the coast.

By some minor miracle, the mystery of the missing writ was solved.

Not only that but the writs for all Southern Highlands seats were still in Moresby. You get that needles and pins strange feelings for this sort of extras.

But how did this discrepancy happen? How did the writs for SHP get locked up in Port Moresby?

The short answer from the PNG Electoral Commission was all the more annoying.

The PNGEC says it was an "oversight". How callous is that? How careless is that action?

A female officer was suspended for speaking out on the failed common roll update.

Will those who allowed the 'discrepancy' to occur, be suspended as well?

Was the oversight a part of a ploy to unsettle O'Neill and his PNC? 

An Electoral officer was finally sent with the writs to Mendi and O'Neill was formally declared MP-elect with the signing of the writ.

The PNG Parliament. 

His party PNC has so far won 2 seats to his nemesis, James Marape's PANGU, which has picked up 5 seats in the PNG National General Election. 

Election Manager Alwyn Jimmy says they did not have the writs at the time of the declaration but advised one of his officers to travel to Mt Hagen to pick up the original writs flown in from Port Moresby and then taken to Mendi by road.

“But yes, we declared the Member for Ialibu Pangia yesterday without signing the writ, but it is okay, he can sign it later,” Mr Alwyn said. 

"But otherwise we declared him in public as he is the elected member for Ialibu Pangia who reached the absolute majority of 37, 751," he said. 

"People were happy their leader got re-elected.

“He is our first candidate declared in Southern Highlands after two days of counting and we are trying to do the same thing to the other seats so we can complete our declarations, but some hiccups along the way,” Jimmy said.

Chief Electoral Commissioner Simon Sinai has been under fire for his handling of  NGE22 which has been plagued by violence, deaths,  fraud, double voting, names of voter missing from the common roll.

The host of problems and the inept handling of the elections by the EC and his management team has led to the destruction of ballot boxes and ballot papers in Markham district, Morobe Province, Kabwum, also in Morobe, and the hijacking of 41 boxes in Lagaip in Enga province.

It will be no major mystery if the troubled NGE 2022 becomes a failed election.

We are 8 days away from return of writs.