WHP candidate alleges illegal conduct of duties

Wednesday 28th August 2013

By PEARSON KOLO

Election officials of Lumusa Local Level Government in the Western Highlands Province have been blamed for deliberately not performing duties constitutionally.
The runner-up candidate for Lumusa LLG Paul Barlus Warte claimed that their LLG election was greatly manipulated and influenced by the assistant returning officer for Lumusa LLG and his election officials.
Mr Paul Warte said one of the failures of the ARO Tommy Peke and his election officials was that they never asked the police to assist when ballot papers were hijacked.
“Ballot papers in two council wards, Ipilisane ward 24 and Independent wards 25 were hijacked by supporters and the new president declared but the election officials never brought this up or even asked the police who were on the ground to assist,” Mr Warte said.
“The president declared and the ARO collaborated and asked the election officials to write down all the first preference votes for himself and distributed the second and third preference votes.”
Mr Warte said the people in these two council wards just stood and watched while the election officials did this in front of the police, voters’ and scuritiners of other candidates.
“The election officials and the ARO were selected among many to run a transparent LLG election but they abused their entrusted powers and hijacked the election under their position for their personal gain,” Mr Warte stressed.
Mr Warte and several other candidates who contested for the Lumusa LLG presidential seat are putting up a paper together to present to the electoral commissioner.