NCD Candidates today marched to the regional counting centre here in the Nation’s Capital demanding an explanation from the NCD Election Manager as to why miscellaneous ballot papers were found under one of the tents located at the Rita Flynn Counting Centre. An undisclosed number of boxes and ballot papers were allegedly discovered, leading to the candidates questioning the integrity of the counting process and demanding an explanation. According to the NCD regional candidates, their scrutineers had witnessed the ballot papers under the tent and informed their respective candidates. The candidates also claimed that the security personnel were unaware of the papers in the vicinity of counting centre. A regional candidate and former NCD Metropolitan Superintendent, Mr. Andy Bawa, expressed great distaste toward the discovery of these boxes and papers. “Well it seems like a never ending scenario, it’s not even 24 hours, and just yesterday we had a situation as we had to take some of the Election officials to have them interview and processed for election fraud.” Stacks of papers were found, some initialed and some not, to which the candidates presumed were live papers. The word from the Election Manager, Mr. Kila Ralai, to candidates is that these are dead papers. This then led to the candidates demanding that counting should not commence until the papers are dealt with. “So all the candidates have resolved that the papers need to be taken into a container and locked up and counting commence, we don’t know whether to believe him as we’ve had delayed polling, delayed counting and now this.” With the return of writs only eight days away, all the candidates are anxious to have counting continue and for a leader to be elected. Micheal Kandiu, another regional candidate stated that these sort of actions are creating suspicions for the people and the candidates and called for transparency by the electoral commission. “You know we don’t want to delay counting any longer, so the Election Manager has assured that he will get a container and have these papers locked and hopefully counting will commence,” he said.