UNDP to assist Bougainville elections

Transcript

The United Nations Development Programme in Papua New Guinea says it will do all it can to assist the Autonomous Bougainville Government in carrying out upcoming elections.

The elections, scheduled for June at the latest, are seen as crucial as they mark the start of the referendum period agreed upon in the Bougainville Peace Agreement.

UNDP Resident Representative Roy Trivedy told Koro Vaka'uta a UN team from New York has been conducting pre-election surveys.

ROY TRIVEDY:  What they've done is to look at the range of support that has already been pledged and committed and has been provided by New Zealand, by Australia and by some other partners and then recommended a number of specific areas where the UN could add value to the work that has already been done through the Bougainville Electoral Commission.  There are six main areas that we will be providing assistance to.  The first is around co-ordination of international observers.  Second,  around supporting the establishment of electoral dispute resolution mechanisms because we know that in most elections there are often disputes and they usually need some kind of dispute resolution mechanism. The third is around training support for woman candidates who are standing in the elections.  Fourthly, training of candidates and party agents as well and scrutineers during the election process.  Fifthly, training of media representatives and then finally at the end of the election process, what we are proposing to do is have a lessons-learnt exercise and co-ordinate that with everybody that has been involved so we can try and strengthen the institution of the Bougainville Electoral Commission.  Those are the main areas.  The team were here looking at a range of things and they actually met with George Manu the Electoral Commissioner as well as the Chief Secretary Monovi Amani for Bougainville and it's definitely in consultation with both of them.

KORO VAKA'UTA:  And of course the UNDP or the UN in particular have had a long history of observing and assisting, supervising with elections, so that history will come into play and will help?

RT:  Absolutely.  What we're going to do here is definitely to bring people who have already worked with the UN system in many of the key elections over the decade and more, that we bring very experienced people who can hit the ground running.  We need those people very quickly and one of the things we are able to do is go into our election roster, people who are already pre-qualified to do this kind of work, to be able to select the best people available through those rosters who can hit the ground running and quickly get them into play.

KV:  Why is it so important that this election process runs smoothly?

RT:  It's really important because of course we know that one of the things in the next five years the Bougainville government and the National government has also a commitment to start to prepare and to run the referendum process for Bougainville.  These elections in a way are a precursor to all of that.  It will be the people who have been elected through these elections that will then be responsible for them taking forward, at least on the Bougainville side, the work towards the referendum.  These are incredibly important elections for Bougainville and for the country as a whole.