Belden Namah backs June election

By JEFFREY ELAPA

BELDEN Namah says his Papua New Guinea Party is ready to go to the polls and has no plans to defer the general election, The National reports.
 Namah denied claims he was behind plans to defer the election for at least 12 months.
He said he only said that because he wanted a fair election to be conducted after Electoral Commissioner Andrew Trawen had admitted that the electoral rolls were not ready.
 “We want the election to proceed as scheduled. I have no powers to defer election,” he said.
But he said the Electoral Commission had failed to prepare the electoral roll properly.
He said only two million eligible voters had been registered and that 2.6 million others had not been registered.
He said some places had an inflated number of voters, while many people had their names omitted as was the case in Koroba-Lake Kopiago district, Southern Highlands.
Namah also called on Australia not to interfere with the running of the affairs of the country.
“Australia should mind its own affairs and not continue to suppress and bully us,” he said.
“They should let us run our own country the way we think is right.”
He was responding to Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Bob Carr who announced that Australia would consider sanctions on PNG if the election was deferred