People urged to report early campaigning

THE people of East New Britain are being urged to report illegal early campaigning by aspiring politicians, The National reports.
Provincial electoral mana­ger Terence Hetinu made the call after his office received reports of illegal political meetings where aspiring candidates were giving away money and food items.
He called on people to capture the meetings on their mobile phone cameras and record the speeches being made during such gatherings and to pass these on to the electoral office in Kokopo.
He said if such were confirmed as political campaigning, those people would be arrested by police for early campaigning and could be banned from contesting the coming elections.
Hetinu said the Electoral Commission was gearing for a massive awareness programme in the wards to educate the people on the meaning of early campaigning and how the community could distinguish between political and social gatherings.
He stressed that the Electoral Commission wanted the province to conduct a clean and transparent national election next year.
He said people had the right to make decisions and not to be intimidated or have their rights violated on who to vote for in elections.
Hetinu was responding to queries by Kombiu LLG president, Komit Kunai, who complained of early campaigning by candidates.