Man in the middle

Julius Chan, 39, Parliamentary Leader of the People’s Progress Party, who gave up the deputy prime ministership and crossed the floor of the house with his party.

Julius Chan, small and soft-speaking, comes from a well established PNG-Asian family with business interests in the islands of New Britain and New Ireland.

He was educated in Australia and for a time held Australian citizenship but relinquished it at independence when PNG citi zenship became available for the first time.

He was a competent finance minister before becoming deputy prime minister after last year’s general election. In terms of prac tical performance, he is one of the strong men of PNG poli tics.

He is one PNG politican, too, who has always been in a pos ition of extreme personal power - but a power tacitly held rather than exercised or acknowledged. There are several reasons for this, one being that with the possible exception of Mr Somare he is the only parliamentary party leader whose position within his own ranks has never been questioned or overwhelmed by circumstances. Another reason has rested in a certain amount of personal respect which he has always received from all sec tions of the house, although feeling toward him will be far more polarised as a result of the recent political developments.

Most important in practice, however, has been his leadership of a small tight-knit party which has effectively held the balance of power for nearly seven years and is still a party to be reckoned with.