Benn said operational guidelines were refined and served as the main guide and the following principles were outlined and used primarily in the field demarcation exercise including community interest; population density; geographic features; existing boundaries including divisional and sub-divisional boundaries.

He said, in many instances, the combination of these principles was used to demarcate the constituencies and he emphasised that the process of demarcation is a difficult and complex task, surrounding delimitation and delineation.

Benn said, in an effort to save time and in a positive anticipation that the Minister’s Order might not be radically different from that of the one allocating seats for local authority areas in the last elections, GECOM instructed that work commence on the demarcation followed by consultations.

He said registration officers were required to prepare draft proposals for both the delimitation and delineation, which were presented and discussed at the GECOM Secretariat.

The officers were then required to share those proposals with scrutineers and traditional authorities and those persons helped GECOM officials to determine the appropriate names in some instances and suitable boundaries for the demarcated areas, Benn asserted.

He said it helped to provide the kind of reliable information that is needed and, upon completion of those activities, the registration officers were required to organise and conduct consultations in each local authority area, based on the proposals.

Benn said consultations help the demarcation of constituencies to be acceptable to all stakeholders and some of the areas had to be revisited after the Minister’s Order, which reflected a change from what existed in past local government elections.

He observed that the number of seats in some local authority areas varied and, in some, seats were increased whilst in others, seats were decreased and some of the local authority areas had to be revisited.

Benn said, at the end of those consultations, registration officers were required to submit reports to the Secretariat where they were analysed and a summary prepared and given to the participants to engage in discussions.