A youth advocacy group in Vanuatu says this Friday's snap election will deny thousands of young people their constitutional rights.
Ballot box in a Vanuatu election. Photo: RNZ / Johnny Blades
The president of the organisation Vanuatu Youth Against Corruption, Priscilla Meto, says more than 70 percent of people who turned 18 after the last election in 2012 will be unable to vote on Friday.
She says this is because the nature of the snap election means the Electoral Commission has been unable to issue new electoral cards to many of those people.
Ms Meto says this is unfair as it means more than 3,000 young people will not be able to exercise their right to vote, and will have to wait until 2020 to be heard.
"It will be very unfair because most of the youth will not be casting their vote to participate in this election to show what they want during this snap election."
Observer concedes imperfections with Vanuatu's election
The chairman of the Commonwealth secretariat's observer mission says Friday's snap elections in Vanuatu is a significant one for the country and will pose many challenges.
Hubert Ingraham, who is the former prime minister of the Bahamas, says the election's sudden nature means the organisation only had a few days to assemble a five-person observer team.
However, despite the team being smaller than a usual observer mission, he is satisfied it will be able to adequately monitor nationwide and determine whether the elections meet democratic standards.
Mr Ingraham says his group will make a clear statement at the end of their observation mission but admitted that the extraordinary nature of the election means the situation is not perfect.
"This particular election came about under special circumstances. Ordinarily the election would have been due here by November of this year; Ordinarily, registration of voters would be continuing now. These are not ordinary times, and sometimes in extraordinary times you end up not being able to have a perfect solution to a problem."
Ballot boxes to be dispatched
A patrol boat left Vanuatu's Port Vila yesterday to dispatch ballot boxes and papers to Shepherds group in North Efate, Malampa, Penama, Sanma and Torba province.
The Vanuatu electoral office reported that the Solomon Islands patrol boat is expected to deliver the ballot boxes and ballot papers in the all islands of the Torba province before election day on Friday.
The electoral office said Patrol Auki will go to the islands that are not reachable by plane.
The Vanuatu patrol boat, RVS Tukoro is still at Mala wharf in Port Vila awaiting repairs it sustained during cyclone Pam last year.
