Wingti: Young man

in a hurry

Papua New Guinea’s new prime minister, Paias Wingti is widely regarded as an idealist who genu inely cares for his country.

Young, he is 34 or 35 hard-working, ambitious and a disciplinarian, he does not smoke or drink.

Wingti is confident he can pull the country out of the economic doldrums in which it finds itself by cut ting back on waste and encouraging business.

Wingti entered politics in 1977 after dropping out of a course in politics and eco nomics at the University of Papua New Guinea and spending some time back in his home village of Moika, near Mount Hagen, in the populous Highlands area.

His first Cabinet post came in late 1978 under Michael Somare, the man he eventually helped to

turn out of office and into whose shoes he thereby hurled himself.

In 1980 a vote of no confidence put both men out of office but in 1982, when Somare returned triumphant, Wingti was a defiant deputy prime minis ter.

In August 1983 the first move in a series which eventually led Wingti to the prime minister’s chair came when the then Opposition leader, lambakey Okuk (National Party), offered him the top job if he would cross the floor to stand with the Opposition in a vote of no confidence. Wingti re fused, but by October, 1984, rumors of a split were rife, as he publicly warned Somare of “dangerous” men in his Cabinet who must be re moved.

The partnership limped

on for another five months, until, in March, 1985, Wing ti resigned from Cabinet and accepted Sir Julius Chan’s nomination of him self as prime minister in yet another no confidence mo tion.

The motion failed but Wingti was undismayed. In April he and his 14 Pangu Rati members whom he took with him when he defected most of them Highlanders like himself formed a new party, the People’s Democratic Movement.

Gone were the Marxist leanings of his university days. The new party was founded on a platform of a return to the ideals and the values on which Papua New Guinea was founded.

It pledged to build up the economy, encouraging pri vate investment with a minimum of government in terference; education for all; equal opportunity for women; support for the churches and freedom of religion; and a restoration of government authority and respect for the law.