One of the amendments that passed, a proposal to repeal the term limit of members of the Olbiil Er a Kelulau (OEK), which is currently set at 3 terms, has caused people to wonder about its intent.
“I wanted to keep certain incumbent congressmen in office,” a voting citizen said. “However, their names were not on the ballot because they had diligently served this country for a sum of 12 years; and somehow we were persuaded to belief that they had become obsolete and therefore dangerous and must be replaced.”
Some members of the OEK filed to run for another term – despite having had serve 12 or more years – and the Palau Election Commission disqualified their candidacy based on the term limitation that was set within the last four years. They challenged the disqualification in court and lost.
“It seems that people were misled to believe in the 3 year term limitation just so some congressmen could effectively be removed from office,” another voter commented. “I wanted to vote for the current HOD Speaker, but his name was not listed; and now people are saying I can vote for him in 2012. Is this country full of smart people or what?”
All former congressmen, regardless of the number of years they have served, are now eligible to run for OEK in 2012.
Horizon has learned, after talking with ordinary members of the community, that many expect the number of the candidates in the 2012 General Election to rise above 50 – unless other candidacy requirements are places to screen candidates.
A citizen stated, “If being a congressman is considered a high paying job, then all of the candidates should be required to be able to read and write Palauan and English, have at least 3 years of related work experience in Palau, and so forth. Most of the low paying jobs in the country have long and stringent qualification requirements. I expect our congressmen – probably the highest paid public servants – to have better qualifications.”
