35 Electorates

New Polls Could

Be Forced In

If an apparent flaw in Papua sJew Guinea’s electoral ordinance s exploited, new elections may be forced in up to 35 of the 54 electorates where elections for the new House of Assembly

were recently held.

A SECTION of the ordinance pro vides that before a candidate :an be returned he must an absolute majority of votes. “An absolute majority” is defined by the ordinance as meaning more than half the total votes cast in any elec :orate.

Few candidates received the neces sary majority on primary votes alone and there were few preferences to distribute as electors were not obliged to mark preferences on their ballot papers.

By mid-March, one native candi date had already indicated his inten tion to call for the election in his electorate to be nullified if he failed to be returned. And many others— both European and native—were ex pected to follow suit.

This situation could not arise in Australia where voters are required by law to fill out ballot papers com pletely.

Modifications to the Australian electoral laws were made in the Territory to cater for the special needs of its one million primitive voters so that they only had to mark their first choice, but could mark preferences if they wished.

In passing the ordinance last year, the Territory’s Legislative Council seems not to have foreseen what would happen if natives marked only one candidate on the ballot paper.

Legal experts in Port Moresby say that candidates in an electorate where the winner did not achieve an abso lute majority could successfully appeal to the Court of Disputed Re turns.

When primary vote counting had nearly been completed, only 19 elec torates looked likely to be won according to the provisions of the ordinance. It was then thought that candidates narrowly defeated on primary votes or in danger of losing their deposits were the most likely to appeal.