It will be one-day polling for the various provinces in the highlands region with security teams moving between provinces to provide security on the respective polling days as per the polling schedule.
The Papua New Guinea (PNG) Electoral Commissioner, Mr. Simon Sinai, said polling for the highlands is scheduled to start on Monday the 04th of July with Hela province to go first.
For the Enga province the polling day will be on the 07th of July, Southern Highlands province polling day will be on the 11th of July, Jiwaka and Western Highlands province will be on the 13th of July, and wrapping up with polling for Simbu province to be conducted on the 15th of July.
“This arrangement was made in consultation with police because an election cannot be run without police,” said Mr. Sinai.
The Electoral Commissioner further said that they had a meeting with Police Commissioner David Manning last week and agreed to this.
“We should work on a schedule in that order because there’ll be relocation from one location to another. All the provinces are ready, it’s just that police will be moving so that’s why we have the days spaced out between.”
Mr. Sinai added that polling for the other regions should start also on the 04th of July, but if there should be issues, further arrangements will be made.
“Those who have difficulties and late arrivals of materials (election materials), they can always poll on the fifth (05th July) or the sixth (06th July), as long as they make sure they make better awareness that they are affected in certain locations and that they want to defer polling,” explained Mr. Sinai.
Meanwhile, most of the election materials have been transported to the various provinces and from there, they are transported to the various districts, Local Level Governments, and Wards in preparation for polling to start next week.