No change to deadline for nominations in SHP elections

There will be no extension to the deadline for nominations for fresh elections in Papua New Guinea's Southern Highlands province.

Election officials in the province had asked for a five-day extension because a protest by unpaid election workers kept the office closed until Tuesday.

Acting Electoral Commissioner, Andrew Trawen, says there's no legal way to extend the closing date for nominations.

He says all nominations must be in by this afternoon.

"The law doesn't allow it, in actual fact," he said.

"The provisions of the law, the organic law on national and local level government elections only allows an extension for polling and the return of writs only."

"It doesn't allow for nominations," Mr Trawen said.

"The organic law states the nomination period should be seven days, it should not be more than seven days so we are caught there."


27/02/2003 23:30:14 | ABC Radio Australia News