Two Hume council candidate has been disqualified from running in the upcoming local election by the Victorian Electoral Commission (VEC).
Anand Sharma, who was standing in the Mount Ridley ward and Mohamad Abbouche, who was standing in the Bababi Marning Ward, were among 16 candidates across the state deemed ineligible to run.
Sharma was retired before the ballot papers were printed so his name doesn’t feature on the ballot paper.
Abbouche is on the ballot paper with his votes to be passed on to other candidates according to voters’ preferences.
The VEC said that many of the disqualifications were the result of the Department of Government Services and Local Government Victoria cross checking the VEC’s candidate list with the register of local government candidate training.
As of September 30, 12 candidates had not completed the training as declared in their nominations.
It is a legal requirement for candidates to complete the training in the two years before election day to be eligible for nomination.
A further four candidates were retired just after the close of nominations after being found ineligible to nominate.
As part of the nomination process, candidates must declare they have completed the training and specify a completion date for the training. According to the VEC, more than 99 per cent of candidates successfully completed the training.
Before retiring each candidate, the VEC provided them with an opportunity to respond to the intention to retire them, as required by legislation.
As a result, some candidates were matched against the register of local government candidate training and not disqualified.
The current number of candidates standing state-wide is 2215.
