Papua New Guinea - Politics - 2022
From July 2-22, Papua New Guinean voters will have the opportunity to directly elect 118 Members of Parliament (MPs) to serve in the National Parliament for a five-year term. Of the 118 MPs, 96 will represent districts and 20 will represent provinces, one the National Capital District and one the Autonomous Region of Bougainville.
This year, voters will choose from 3,625 candidates, of whom 1,276 are endorsed by the 51 registered political parties and 2,349 are independent candidates. Members for provincial electorates generally also serve as provincial governors. Each province has its own provincial assembly and administration. Open electorate members also serve in their respective Provincial Assemblies. Following the issue of electoral writs on May 12, 2022, the official results are expected to be announced by July 29, the date by which the electoral writs for the 2022 National Election must be returned to the Governor-General of Papua New Guinea.
Papua New Guinea is a constitutional, federal, multiparty, parliamentary democracy. Parliamentary elections took place in 2017, and the People’s National Congress party, led by former prime minister Peter O’Neill, won a majority in the 111-seat unicameral parliament. In 2019 O’Neill resigned, and parliament elected James Marape prime minister. In some parts of the country, electoral contests involved widespread violence, fraud, bribery, voter intimidation, and undue political and tribal influence.
Significant human rights issues included credible reports of: unlawful or arbitrary killings by police; torture by police and cases of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment by police; the existence of criminal defamation laws; serious acts of government corruption; lack of investigation of and accountability for gender-based violence; trafficking in persons; the criminalization of consensual same-sex sexual conduct between men, although the law was not enforced; and extensive child labor, including the worst forms of child labor.
Although the constitution prohibits torture, individual police and correctional-services officers frequently beat and otherwise abused citizens or suspects before or during arrests, during interrogations, and in pretrial detention. There were numerous press accounts of such abuses, particularly against young detainees. Police units operating in highland regions sometimes used intimidation and destruction of property to suppress tribal fighting. Police raids, searches, and forced evictions of illegal squatter settlements and suspected criminals often were marked by a high level of violence and property destruction.
The government frequently failed to prosecute or punish officials who committed abuses, whether in the security services or elsewhere in the government. Impunity was pervasive, including for official corruption. Public concern regarding police and military violence against civilians and security forces’ impunity persisted.
Newspapers sometimes reported on controversial topics, although many journalists in the past complained of intimidation aimed at influencing coverage by agents of members of parliament and other government figures. Self-censorship by journalists was common, especially when reporting on contentious political events.
The constitution provides citizens the ability to choose their government through free and fair elections. Citizens exercised this right through periodic but flawed elections based on universal and equal suffrage. While voting is supposed to take place by secret ballot, secrecy of the ballot was routinely compromised during elections, and assisted voting was common. The most recent general election occurred in 2017. Bribery, voter intimidation, and undue political and tribal influence were widespread in some parts of the country during the election. There were also many incidents of violence and destruction of property, primarily in the Highlands, during and after the voting period, causing the deaths of at least 40 persons, including four police officers. In some areas tribal leaders determined which candidate a tribe would support and influenced the entire tribe to vote for that candidate.
At the invitation of the Electoral Commission of Papua New Guinea, the Commonwealth Secretariat will deploy a Commonwealth Observer Group (COG) to observe the country’s national election scheduled to begin on 2 July 2022. Former president of Nauru, H.E. Baron Waqa, will lead the Commonwealth Observer Group to Papua New Guinea’s national election. Polling will take place between 2 and 22 July.
Fewer candidates are lining up to contest the Papua New Guinea elections than in past polls. In preliminary figures released by the Electoral Commission when nominations closed 26 May 2022 a total of 2,351 candidates had registered, compared with 3,332 in 2017. The Electoral Commissioner, Simon Sinai, was surprised at the numbers, saying the Commission had been anticipating more than 4,000 to stand.
PNG Electoral Commissioner Simon Sinai said fighting for support and territory became a major issue in the past under the old First Past Post system. However, the the Limited Preferential Voting system, where a voter has three different choices of equal value, has done away with these problems of the past.
The most likely contenders for prime minister are the incumbent James Marape and the man he deposed, former prime minister Peter O'Neill. Marape came to power with big promises to "take back PNG" and make the country the "richest black Christian nation". Incumbent governments are usually returned at election time, but Mr Marape is coming up against a well-funded and well-organised campaign from Mr O'Neill. For years the two were close political allies, but now they are bitter rivals and the rivalry is being played out on the campaign trail. In the wake of the Solomon Islands security deal, Mr Marape has felt obliged to clarify that there are no plans for a military base as part of a development proposal in PNG that has garnered Chinese-government interest.
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