Papua New Guinea - Politics - 2017 - Peter O'Neill
From June 24 through 08 July 2017, citizens of Papua New Guinea directly elect 111 members of the National Parliament (MPs). The MPs were selected from among 3,340 candidates, which include representatives of 45 political parties and 2,006 independent candidates. Eighty-nine MPs represent districts, also known as open electorates, and 22 represent provinces. The 22 MPs representing provinces will also serve as provincial governors. To elect both types of MPs, each voter will cast two ballots: an open electorate ballot and a provincial electorate ballot. The official results would be announced by July 24, 2017.
In 2013, there were 4,776,096 registered voters in Papua New Guinea. Following vigorous voter registration efforts, including an electoral roll update campaign, approximately five million voters were registered for the 2017 national election.
The coalition government led by Prime Minister Peter O'Neill entered the election under siege on political, legal and economic fronts. O'Neill looked to be in a strong position, as his government held a significant majority in parliament, and the opposition is fragmented. But alliances in Papua New Guinea are often unstable, and the result of the election was far from certain.
As a commodity exporter, the PNG economy has been hit hard by the drop in world commodity prices and a major drought. The resources-dependent economy was hard hit by the collapse of global commodity prices at the end of 2014. The dramatic fall, combined with record deficit spending, left the government in an untenable fiscal situation, worsened by an overvalued exchange rate due to the central bank policy propping up the domestic currency. Strong economic growth driven by the start of the PNG LNG project had tailed off amidst weak non-resource sector growth. Inflation has begun to pick up reflecting earlier exchange rate depreciation and increases in prices of seasonal agricultural items. Despite the recent progress, more decisive action is needed to improve macroeconomic statistics.
Papua New Guinea's prime minister Peter O'Neill and his party faced a balancing act pleasing rivals China and Australia, whose support the country needed to rein in a snowballing budget deficit.
Incumbent Peter O'Neill was re-elected as prime minister of Papua New Guinea, following a chaotic, violence-plagued campaign marred by allegations of voting irregularities. O'Neill was sworn in on 02 August 2017 to a second five-year term to lead the South Pacific island nation after his People's National Congress formed a coalition government with other minor parties, giving O'Neill 60 votes with 46 votes against him. The weeks-long election process struggled because of poor organization and accusations by opposition candidates of vote rigging.
On 17 May 2019 O'Neill and other leading officials were referred by the Ombudsman Commission to a Leadership Tribunal over a $US1.2 billion loan his government took on from Swiss-based investment bank UBS in 2014. O'Neill was criticized by the opposition for his handling of a prospective $13 billion (€11.6 billion) plan to double the country's liquefied national gas exports through the French energy giant Total. Opposition politicians said 24 May 2019 they would also push for an investigation in Australia and Switzerland over a $830.76 million (AU$1.2 billion) loan arranged by finance group UBS, according to The Australian Financial Review newspaper. The government report about the 2014 deal that allowed Papua New Guinea to borrow money from UBS to buy a 10% stake in the Australian Stock Exchange-listed energy firm Oil Search is set to be presented in Parliament. Oil Search in turn used the money to buy the Elk Antelope gas field, which is being developed by Total. The country had reportedly lost 1 billion kina ($287 million) on the UBS deal after being forced to sell the shares when the price fell in 2017.
A stream of high-profile lawmakers had defected to the opposition bloc in the past few weeks, compromising O'Neill's parliamentary majority. With the defection of William Duma's United Resources Party, the opposition claimed to have 62 MPs in the 111-seat parliament, as it sought to oust the prime minister by a parliamentary motion. A no confidence vote against O'Neill was set to be held on 28 May 2019.
O'Neill tendered his resignation on 26 May 2019, handing over the reins to Julius Chan, a former prime minister. O'Neill had been the South Pacific nation's leader since 2011. The outgoing prime minister told a press conference in the capital, Port Moresby, that recent ruling coalition defections in Parliament showed there was "a need for change."
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison thanked O'Neill for his services: "I will look forward to working with the new prime minister of PNG (Papua New Guinea) in the same way I have enjoyed such a strong friendship and relationship with Peter O'Neill," he told reporters in Canberra.
The plan to pass the reins to Sir Julius came after O'Neill recently lost the large majority support he'd enjoyed in parliament since 2011, as a flood of grievances over PNG's ailing economy, deteriorating basic services and festering corruption allegations finally turned the tide against him.
Usually, under provisions of PNG's constitution, the deputy prime minister takes up the vacancy when a prime minister steps down. In this case, Deputy Prime Minister Charles Abel had been overlooked by O'Neill in favor of the leader of a coalition partner, the People's Progress Party. O'Neill argued that maintaining a government based around his People's National Congress and the remnants of his coalition would be best for the interests of political stability. "There is no way that I could stand by and allow the opposition to come into government with their dangerous mix of wild ideas," Mr O'Neill said.
Opposition power broker James Marape, whose resignation as Finance Minister in April 2019 sparked the exodus, cautioned over "mixed signals" from the government. "There is no such thing as the prime minister resigning and handing over leadership to someone who is not even a minister of state. That is legally not correct." Leading opposition MPs described their group as a government in waiting.
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