SIEC to take over all provincial elections soon

The Solomon Islands Electoral Commission, SIEC, will soon be responsible for all provincial elections in the country.

Chief Electoral Officer Mose Saitala announced, this is contained in the new Electoral Act recently passed by the National Parliament.

“So we will do that provided this section in the Act in relation to our take over of the provincial elections is signed off by the Minister, that means we do it now.

“But its very clear from both side of the house that they want us to take over the provincial elections.”

In a related development Mr Saitala said there are plans after the 2019 national general elections, to hold both the national and provincial elections on the same day.

He said this will have implications on the commission, particularly in terms of human resources.

Mr Saitala added, it will be a challenge to work on the transition, ensuring all provincial assemblies to dissolve at the same time.

“In this next four years, the task of the commission is to work very closely with relevant Ministries like the Ministry of Provincial Government and also each provincial assembly so we can come to some agreements in terms of how we will be having this transition into making sure that we achieve the objective that every provincial assemblies including the national parliament, will dissolve at the same time.”

By: Kikiva Tuni