Legislative Election In 44 Districts Of Papua Likely Delayed

Jayapura, Papua, April 8 (Antara) - The legislative election in 44 districts in Papua scheduled to be held on April 9 were likely to be delayed, due to the late arrival of ballots in those areas. "Those 44 districts were spread in four areas, Yahukimo, Nduga and Lanny Jaya, and they had not received the ballots until today," Papua`s Chairman of Elections Commission (KPU) Adam Arisoy said in Jayapura on Tuesday. Arisoy mentioned that there are 35 districts in Yahukimo, eight districts in Nduga and one district in Lanny Jaya. Particularly in Yahukimo, Arisoy explained that the late logistics transportation tender caused the ballots to not be sent on time as the airlines company had accepted tenders from other areas. The bad weather also affected the electoral logistics distribution to those areas, which mostly can only be reached through air transportation. Therefore, Arisoy said Jayapura`s KPU will write a letter to the central KPU to ask permission to delay the election day. "We will send a letter to the central KPU about the obstacle we faced here, so then hopefully the election would be delayed," he said. Previously, Commander of the Cenderawasih Military Regional Command XVII Major General Christian Zebua had deployed a helicopter to help distribute the ballots to remote areas of Papua, but the efforts were hampered by weather and geographical factors. Legislative elections will be held across Indonesia on April 9 to elect 560 members of the House of Representatives (DPR), 132 members of the Regional Representatives Council (DPD), 2,137 members of the provincial legislative assembly and 20,257 members of the district`s/city`s legislative assembly.