Preparations for the Archdiocesan Elections of 18 December are in the final stage, says in a statement to CNA, the General Overseer of Archdiocesan Elections, Director of the Audit Department of the Church of Cyprus, Ioannis Harilaou.
Asked at what stage are the preparations and procedures for the conduct of the Archbishop's Elections on December 18, Mr. Harilaou said that the procedures are progressing very well according to the timetables as set out from the first day the issue of holding the elections on December 18 was raised.
"Right now we are at the final stage, where the polling stations are being prepared,[/B] we are getting ready to give the ballot boxes and everything that each presiding officer must have, such as the ballot papers, the final electoral rolls with the details that will be listed so that each voter can be identified so that the process can begin," he added.
Asked when the delivery of the caps will take place, Harilaou said that on the 16th of the month the caps will be delivered to all presiding officers.
In response to a question whether there has been any briefing of those who will be working on Sunday on how the process will be conducted, the General Superintendent of Archdiocesan Elections said that there has been briefing, seminars have been held last week and everyone has been fully briefed and has written instructions on how the whole process will be conducted.
Asked how many people will be working on election day, Harilaou said that942 will be presiding officers at the polling stations, another 2.5 thousand assistants will be working at the polling stations and hundreds more will be working to support both the Chief Electoral Officer and the Provincial Returning Officers.
Regarding how many polling stations will be opened and how they are distributed per archdiocesan province, Mr. Harilaou said that the polling stations will be 942 in total nationwide and per archdiocesan province are distributed as follows: Holy Archdiocese of Cyprus 199, Paphos 136, Kition 121, Kyrenia 7, Limassol 253, Morphos 45, Constantia and Famagusta 50, Kykkos and Tylliria 4, Tamasos and Orini 74 and Trimythus and Lefkara 53.
[/P]In response to a question, Mr. Harilaou said that the archpriestly provinces are the Holy Archdiocese of Cyprus and the Metropolises, in this particular case, which hold the elections.
"There are still archpriestly provinces which are the Diocese of Karpasia, Amathus and Arsinoe."
"There are still archpriestly provinces which are the Diocese of Karpasia, Amathus and Arsinoe. But the Diocese of Amathus will be included within the Holy Metropolis of Limassol, the Diocese of Arsinoe will be included in the Holy Metropolis of Paphos, while the Diocese of Karpasia, as you know, is all occupied," he added.
He noted that voting will begin at 10, there will be a break from 13.00 to 14.00 and then it will continue from 14.00 to 18.00.
He also said that if needed, there will be some extension, 1 hour.
Regarding the counting, Harilaou said it will be done on the spot, as it is done in state elections.
"And here at the center where my office is, we are already preparing the space and all the necessary infrastructure to accept the results for 942 centers, 942 polling stations, so that we can get the result. The final result will come out from here," he added.
Regarding what a person who comes to vote should know, Mr. Harilaou said the first thing is that he should know where he is voting and if he is a voter first of all.
"Be on the list and know where he is voting. If he doesn't know where he is voting then he will be inconvenienced and he will be inconvenienced and he will be inconveniencing others who will be visiting the various polling stations because he probably thinks he is voting at one of those polling stations," he noted.
As Mr. Harilaou, it is every voter's obligation to find out where they are voting.
"Our obligation, if he met the criteria to be on the electoral rolls, is to give him the tools to find out where he is voting and we have been giving him the tools to find out where he is voting for 10 days now," he added.
He also said that the special platform "Find out where you vote", will be on the Church of Cyprus website, churchofcyprus.org.cy, until the last day (https:/churchofcyprus.org.cy/83616) and in order to find out where someone is voting they will have to place their ID number and correctly place their date of birth.
"I stress correctly because usually they do not follow the instructions of the platform and instead of placing the digits of the date of birth in the correct way, they place them differently and in the end they consider that they are not on the list, while most of them are on the list. If they are in the list it will be seen and they should put the digits as indicated by the platform, that is they should put two digits for the day, two digits for the month and finally 4 digits for the year," he added.
He also said that on the day of the Archdiocesan Elections, for voters to be able to vote, they should necessarily carry their political identity card or for their further convenience, their voter booklet, which contains the identity number through which the voter will be identified.
"So one will be able to visit the polling station with either an ID card or a voter's booklet. If he is on the list he will pick up his ballot paper, place either the cross or X or tick on one of the candidates he chooses and drop the ballot paper in the ballot box as he does in all elections," he added.
Asked what time the final result and the announcement of the results is expected, Mr. Harilaw said "I cannot tell you the time I expect them because we will do it centrally for 942 centres while in the state it is done provincially."
"The reason why we are not doing it provincially is because there is not the infrastructure to do it in different chiefdoms and also to ensure impartiality. That is why we will do it here in a seamless process, which we have actually planned and designed. There will be a representative of each candidate here to monitor the whole process and we will come out with the result for the number of votes that each candidate got," he noted.
On a related note, Harilaou said they are not proceeding to draw a tripartite representative.
"We will come out with the result for the six candidates.It is reasonable for someone to consider what the three-person," he said.
But, Harilaou continued, there is the Charter process.
"When the election process ends on the 18th, the next three days are objection days to the election process."
"When the election process ends on the 18th, the next three days are objection days to the election process. I will collect all these objections if there are any and I will have to hand them over to the Surveyor and the Holy Synod. According to the Charter of the Church of Cyprus, after the three days have passed, within five days the Holy Synod will have to meet to study the objections, ratify the result and draw up the tripartite," he added.
On that day the tripartite is drawn up, the General Overseer of Archbishop Elections pointed out. "Subsequently, within 3 days, the Holy Synod will choose the Archbishop from the tripartite already drawn up. Since you often ask me how many days it will take, from what you understand, the timelines can be done in a short period of time, they can be done in a longer period of time. This is not my decision, it is the decision of the Holy Synod," he noted.
Asked if there is a ban on statements from Friday until the end of the election process, Charilaou said there is not,[/B] adding that it was an issue that had been on his mind to stop campaigning on Friday.
"But because we don't have legislation and have sanctions, if I sent out this directive, in the absence of sanctions, if someone followed it because they wanted to follow it and someone else didn't follow it, the person who didn't follow it would have no sanctions, so it would be unfair to the person who did follow it. Therefore it would not exist. What we are appealing for is for this mild, good, beautiful climate to continue until the last day," he said. Harilaou said that "my last message is that we are having an ecclesiastical election, that this beautiful climate and mildness continues."
"All the candidates were given the opportunity to give their positions, and it was very good, through the media, through the internet, through many tools that they had in their hands. We want everyone's understanding, both the voters and those who will be working and the journalists. There is a great work being done. If some minor problems arise, we will resolve them. So far we have shown that we have not left anything to chance and we have not allowed any problem to actually bog down the process or taint the process. We need everyone's help. Without everyone's help, we will achieve nothing," he concluded.
Source: CNA
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