PNG seeks election security help from Timor-Leste and others
Papua New Guinea has initiated plans to request 200 defence personnel from Timor-Leste to help supervise PNG's general election next year.
PNG Prime Minister James Marape has announced plans to seek 200 defence personnel from Timor-Leste to assist in supervising the country's upcoming general election. This request is part of a larger initiative to assemble a 1000-strong multinational election security and observation team, which would include soldiers from Timor-Leste, Vanuatu, Fiji, Solomon Islands, Australia, and New Zealand.
Solomon Islands has already agreed to join the deployment, according to Marape's office. The external support is crucial to ensure a peaceful environment for citizens to choose their leaders, as PNG's recent elections have faced issues such as ballot fraud, electoral roll errors, and violence during polling and vote-counting periods.
The plan aims to lengthen the actual polling time and build a strong foundation for regional security, with a cabinet paper expected to formalise the structure for the regional contributions to PNG election security and observation.
Brief written by urgent.news from RNZ Pacific's own syndicated text. Machine-written — it may contain errors, so check the original before relying on it.