POLITICAL Parties are key stakeholders in elections and the Solomon Islands Electoral Commission (SIEC) values the significant role they play, Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Jasper Highwood Anisi stated.
CEO Anisi was speaking at a one-day Political Parties’ Lessons Learned Workshop held at the Heritage Park Hotel in Honiara on Tuesday.
The workshop brought together leaders of the country’s Political Parties to discuss lessons learned from the current electoral system and from the first ever Joint Election on April 17.
CEO Anisi said political parties are key stakeholders who also participate in election processes and as such, SIEC values the crucial role they play as an election stakeholder.
“Basically, as the election management body, we organize this workshop to ask leaders from political parties on what worked well and what did not work out well during the last election and what are the opportunities or rooms for improvement.
“By looking at the electoral cycle, we are in the post-election [era] and during post-election, we do reviews and research studies and if there is a need for reformation of laws then we might make submissions for law reformation in preparation for the next elections in 2028,” he added.
CEO Anisi highlighted that election is the biggest operation and is a costly exercise in terms of resource investments to conduct elections.
He said in such operation, SIEC needs to improve too on how to do things in terms of processes to ensure they comply with the relevant laws and administrative and management procedures.
“Political parties are well organized groups and they have candidates whom they come and nominate to contest elections.
“Political parties have a story to tell us about how SIEC conducted the previous elections.
“This is to allow them to tell us about the challenges they faced in terms of the processes, procedures and the steps during the last Joint Elections so we collaboratively find ways to improve in moving forward for the next elections in 2028.
“Our election improves every time because of Lesson Learned workshops like this,” CEO Anisi emphasized.
The workshop saw political party leaders interact together in group activities, discussions and presentations on lessons learned right from the Voter Registration, Nomination, Campaigning, Polling Day and Counting and Results processes during previous elections.
Acting Political Parties Registrar Gilson Galo said, the workshop was one of the exercises adopted by the SIEC and its partners like the Political Parties Commission (PPC) and the Political Parties Registrar to work collaboratively with political parties so that the Electoral System and Election exercises are conducted according to the law for the good of all citizens.
“This program is for political parties. So as administrators of Political parties, we invite political party representatives to come and give their views on how the recent Joint Elections were conducted and what are their views and recommendations on how the electoral system should be through the political lenses.
“This is a very important exercise for us as Political Parties Commission (PPC) and the political parties, because political parties are the key players in the electoral system and they are the organizations that were established to fulfill the values and principles of democracy,” he added.
Mr Galo said election is part of our democracy where people exercise their rights and it is also relevant for political parties to be part of this kind of exercises to allow various political parties to come up with ideas on how they want the electoral system should be or it should work and on how the system affects the interest of political parties.
He said there are rules that political parties must also abide by and they are contained in the Political Integrity Act – the established legal framework that political parties should work under.
Story and Photos by RAYMOND HULANGA
Solomon Star, Honiara
