Chief Referendum Officer appointed
The Chair of the Bougainville Referendum Commission (BRC), the Honourable Bertie Ahern, announced the appointment of Mr. Mauricio Claudio as the Chief Referendum Officer (CRO) for the referendum anticipated for later this year.
Mr. Claudio arrived in Buka on Saturday to take up his post. “We are absolutely delighted to have found someone as experienced and capable as Mauricio to lead our team through the referendum process, said Mr. Ahern following a meeting of the BRC in Buka today.
Mr. Claudio has worked to support and conduct elections since the late 1990s. A national of the United States, this work has taken him to the Americas, Africa, Europe, and Asia alongside prominent international organizations. He is no stranger to Papua New Guinea, having worked in Bougainville to support the 2015 ABG elections, and Bougainville’s 2017 community government elections. He makes his home in neighboring Indonesia with his wife and nine year-old son.
PNG Electoral Commission Commissioner Patilias Gamato, who also sits on the BRC said: “It was important to all of the commissioners that we found someone with technical expertise, previous referendum experience and a deep knowledge of the context and history here”.His counterpart in the Autonomous Region of Bougainville, Commissioner George Manu said: “Mauricio has worked on our elections and he has lived among us before. We welcome him back and we know that he will get right to work.”
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