Woman leader LoujayaToni is the new Lae MP, unseating Bart Philemon, who has been in the seat since 1992.
Toni celebrates her win yesterday.-Picture by JOANNE PENNINAH KARO
Toni yesterday polled 7,364 votes ahead of her closest rival , businessman Fred Wak, 5,842 to win.She is the second woman candidate to be declared over the weekend, after Delilah Gore unseated Anthony Nene, for Sohe Open Seat in Oro (Northern) province on Saturday.
Toni has pledged to the people of Lae that in her term as their member for the next five years, her biggest aim would be to fulfil the United Nations agenda of poverty alleviation.
She says she will honour God and join the Government of the day and work towards providing a report card to the UN General Assembly by 2015, to say that Lae District is serious in dealing with poverty alleviation.
And in order to achieve that the member elect says Lae district must first of all develop a biometric data base to keep an accurate account of its population firgures including other important statistics to match development trends.
Toni revealed these in her victory speech after her declaration at 2.30 yesterday afternoon at the Sir Ignatius Sporting complex in Lae.
She polled 7, 364 votes going past the absolute majority vote of 6,000-plus to beat the runner-up Fred Wak who scored 5842 votes.
The 29th and final exclusion in the race was that of sitting member and New Generation party leader Bart Philemon.
Philemon had been the member for Lae for the last 20 years and it took a relative and a woman to unseat him in this general elections under the Preferential Voting System.
