P-Ng Prepares

For Big 1964

Election

Although amendments to existing apua-New Guinea legislation will e necessary before the P-NG Legis \tive Council can be reconstituted, r ative Affairs officers in the Territory re already at work on the new jmmon electoral roll.

Recommendations Made By

the Legislative Council Select ommittee on Political Development st October were that the number I members of the Council should be creased from the present 37 to 65 -55 of them elected. Amongst the > elected members provision is made »r 10 non-native members who ould represent “reserved” elector es. The rest will be natives.

It was recommended also, that the > should be elected from a common >ll.

In the last P-NG Legco elections, itive members were chosen on an ectoral college system. There is erefore no electoral roll for them id this must be built up from ratch—a task, it is calculated, that ould take at least a year. European, uronesian and Asian voters are ready recorded on electoral rolls.

The next election is due in March, >64, and the recording of natiye iters —a vast majority of whom will i illiterate—will go on all the rest this year.

The work is being done in con nction with regular census revision itrols which in the course of each ;ar visit every area of the Territory ith the exception of the few regions tiere full Administration control is it yet complete. The population in ese latter areas is estimated at ound 96,000. The total Papuan id New Guinean population of the ;rritory is just under 2,000,000.

Names of all Papuans and New uineans eligible to vote—all persons 10 will be 18 years of age or over March, 1964—-are to be recorded iring the regular census patrols, ecked both from Village Registers id a census head count.

Under the proposed new legislation, gistration of voters will be com ilsory, but voting will be optional the 1964 elections. The Select ommittee has recommended that msideration of compulsory voting ‘ considered later.