By Aloysius Laukai Managing Editor Bougainville News International -Subscribe for email delivery

Polling in 24 of the 33 seats in the Autonomous Bougainville Government’s Parliament were completed today Saturday May 16th, 2015.

This means only 9 Constituencies are yet to complete polling before end of polling on May 26th.

This also means that the remaining areas must be covered in the next nine days.

This was revealed by the Acting Bougainville Electoral Commissioner, GEORGE MANU this afternoon in his daily press conferences.MANU said that despite the hiccups at the start of Polling he was happy that polling is progressing well.

By this afternoon polling have been completed in many areas.

In North Bougainville, polling has been completed in 12 CONSTITUENCIES of HAKU,PEIT,HALIA,HAGOGOHE,TONSU,TSITALATO,SELAU,TEUA,MAHARI,

TAONITA TINPUTZ and TAONITA TEOP.

In South polling has been completed in twelve Constituencies of RAMU,KONNOU,LULE, BAUBAKE,MAKIS,KOPII,MOTUNA HUYONO, BABA,LATO,BOLAVE and TOROKINA.

The Commissioner said that due to communication difficulties receiving updates for Central continues to be challenging at times.

Polling for Monday will take place at RATERI in the Rao Constituency whilst team 99 For IORO will poll at SIREDONSI village, team 111 for South Nasioi will poll at ROREINANG and in KOKODA team 125 will poll at KOROMIRA.

NEWDAWNPIC of George Manu by Aloysius Laukai

The Bougainville Electoral Commissioner, GEORGE MANU today commented on the 2015 ABG Election Common Roll.

He told a media conference in Buka this afternoon that significant resources are required at an Institutional, Human Resourcing and Infrastructure level to maintain an accurate and comprehensive Common Roll and this remains a challenge for Bougainville.MANU said that it is a legal obligation of every Bougainvillean to enrol as a voter and it is the obligation of the Bougainville Electoral Commissioner, through the Returning Officers to provide that facility to the people.

He said that a good roll depends on the involvement by the people MANU said that through the Returning Officers, Office of the Bougainville Electoral Commission undertook an active enrolment drive between September 2014 and February 2015.

The drive resulted in a Preliminary Roll with about 11,500 additional voters.

The Preliminary Roll was put on public display for about two weeks and at the end of the public scrutiny another 8,800  voters were added to the roll.

The Electoral Commissioner said that the final Electoral Roll used for the 2015 ABG Election totals 172,797 voters, which is an increase of about 20,000 extra voters from the previous roll.

He said that his office received funding for the 2015 ABG General Elections only few weeks before the roll closed on the issue of the writs on March 27th, 2015.