Candidates told to pay for campaigns
BY ROMULUS MASIU
THE 2015 ABG Presidential Election has showed its ugly head with candidates of a constituency in Central Bougainville told by voters to pay K3000 to campaign in their area or leave.
Konampai village assembly in the North Nasioi constituency of Kieta district, Central Bougainville passed this law and termed the fee “entry fee”.
This means that any group or individual that wants to visit any of the four villages to campaigns for any candidate must pay K3000 before they do so.
The mountainous Konampa village assembly has four villages namely Kaino, Bakavori, Kupe and Turampa with 900 plus eligible voters.
“Before your campaign groups enter any of our villages you as candidate have to meet the requirement (cash) of K3000 as entry fee. K3000 must be paid in advance, five days before your campaign date,” chairman Abel Deaung and his executives said after they passed the resolution on April 8.
All chiefs in the four villages have also signed and passed the “entry fee” law and have notified all their communities.
Yesterday, former ABG Mining Minister in the Kabui regime and one of the candidates for North Nasioi seat, Mathias Salas, found it the hard way when he was unceremoniously forced to return to Arawa while on his campaign trail to the mountainous Kupe village.
Mr Salas, who called into the Post-Courier office straight away, said this practice does not support transparency and good governance at all.
“It is getting out of hand calling on authorities and those involved to immediately put a stop to the practice,” he said. “We candidates have our rights to campaign and market ourselves to our voters and such practice is uncalled for.”
“We want transparency and good governance – where is the democracy for elections? People are obstructing our rights to campaign which is a breach to the electoral roll and our constitution rights as far as election is concerned. This is a bad precedence for all other 33 constituencies throughout Bougainville. We shouldn’t be creating such practices. We must stop it.” |