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The elec­tion was called at a time when the econ­o­my is strug­gling, and back­pay is­sues re­main un­re­solved, ac­cord­ing to Denise Tsoiafatt-An­gus, po­lit­i­cal leader of the In­no­v­a­tive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Al­liance (IDA).

Fol­low­ing the elec­tion date an­nounce­ment, Tsoiafatt-An­gus told Guardian Me­dia that vot­ers will head to the polls dis­tract­ed from the gov­ern­ment’s poor per­for­mance.

She point­ed to the re­cent bil­lion-dol­lar com­mis­sion­ing of a hos­pi­tal block two weeks ago, fol­lowed by the par­tial com­mis­sion­ing of the ANR Robin­son In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port ter­mi­nal, call­ing it a strat­e­gy to mis­lead the pub­lic.