campaigning begins

Png Elections

Elections over campaigning begins

It could well be a case of losing the battle and win ning the war for Mr So mare. His Pangu Pati slumped at the polls but he is well ahead in the race for the prime ministership, mainly be cause of the disintegration of Mr Wingti’s six party coalition gov ernment. For the first time the ballot papers in a PNG election carried the photographs of political party leaders next to the photographs of their candi dates.

But Mr Somare’s photo did not work any magic for many Pangu candidates. Pangu lost 15 sitting Members (one who failed to get official re-endorse ment stood as Independent Pangu) and gained only six new for a nett drop of nine seats.

Of Pangu’s official list of 138 endorsed Pangu and Indepen dent Pangu candidates, only 26 were elected Pangu’s worst electoral result for 15 years.

Nevertheless, Pangu remains the largest party in the Parlia ment.

The leader’s photo innova tion may have worked better for Prime Minister Wingti, whose Peoples Democratic Movement (PDM) had 18 members elected a nett drop of two.

The PDM increased its High lands representation from 13 to 14 and there are delayed polls still to come in three other Highlands seats. Many of the Highlands seats that the PDM retained were considered among the most vulnerable in the whole country.

But Mr Wingti’s attempts to hold onto the prime minister ship stumbled in mid July when one of his five coalition partners - the National Party announced it was splitting from

Papua New Guinea went to the polls for three weeks in June and July to elect 106 Members to Parliament. But it won’t be until the first week in August that those 106 Members meet to elect a prime minister. As PIM went to press, the Opposition Leader, Mr Somare, was a strengthening favourite to emerge as his nation’s leader for the third time. The ABC’s Port Moresby correspon dent, Sean Domey, writes for PIM about the elections.

Wingti and throwing its lot in with Somare.

The election result was the least clear cut in PNG since independence. Not only did Pangu suffer. Two of the other long established parties were rebuffed as well.

Sir Julius Chan’s Peoples Progress Party lost seven sitting Members (including Justice Minister Dutton and Provincial Affairs Minister Warena) to be left as very much a minor party with five seats.

An even worse result befell the United Party, which lost all of its sitting Members, including the Party Leader, Police Minis ter Paul Torato.

The only United Party Mem ber elected was a new Member whose first decision as a par liamentarian was to leave the United Party and join Mr Wing ti’ s Peoples Democratic Move ment.

Mr Torato was making de sperate attempts to keep his party alive (see separate story) but the disappearance of the United Party from the Parlia ment brings to an end one chapter of PNG’s political his tory.

The United Party won more than 40 seats in the 1972 election on a platform of opposition to early independ

cnce.

Four parties did manage to increase their representation.

They were the National Party, now under the new leadership of Highlander Mr Michael Mel up by one to 12; the Melanesian Alliance, led by De puty Opposition Leader, Father John Momis up by three to seven; Mr Ted Diro’s Peoples Action Party up three to six; and the Papua Party led by Finance Minister, Galeva Kwar ara up by one to three.

But the big jump was in the number of independents elected up by 14 to 21. This was probably a reflection of voter dissatisfaction with the instability of parties in PNG, but it was also no doubt a result of the record number of more than 1000 independents stan ding.

Although two of the indepen dents elected Mr Hugo Berghauser, a prominent Port Moresby businessman, and Mr Robert Suckling, the proprietor of Moresby’s Pink Pussycat nightclub did try to marshall the rest of the independents into a cohesive group by plac ing full page advertisements in the PNG media the Monday morning after the election, the reality is that the independents will spray all over the place.

A number have already de clared themselves.

One of the new figures in the Parliament who’ll become a force to be reckoned with is the former premier of the Morobe Province, Mr Utula Samana. he has entered Parliament leading a new four Member party, the Morobe Independents Group

(Mig).

Mr Samana PNG’s only real socialist leader moved quickly to link up with the leaderless League for National Advancement (LNA). LNA’s three most prominent Mem bers, Mr Tony Siaguru, Mr John Nilkare and Mr Barry Holloway, all lost their seats.

Julius Chan: little cheer from the PPP states Photos: John Carruthers

With LNA’s three elected Members and his four, Mr Samana is deep in negotiations with Father Momis’s seven Member Melanesian Alliance to then bargain with Mr Somare.

One of the inevitable conclu sions to come from these 1987 elections is that regionalism is on the rise.

There are four regions Papua, the Highlands, the Is lands and the northern main

land coast (called MOMASE region after the Morobe, Madang and two Sepik pro vinces that comprise it).

Pangu has shrunk to be predominantly a MOMASE and Islands party. It now holds only three of the 39 Highlands seats and three of the 24 Papuan seats.

Prime Minister Wingti’s PDM and Mr Michael Mel’s National

Party share the Highlands. Of PDM’s 18 seats, 14 are in the Highlands, and of the National’s 12, all but one are Highlands seats.

The Melanesian Alliance has not penetrated Papua or the Highlands and Mr Ted Diro’s PAP is exclusively Papuan. Mr Diro is moving to swallow up the other Papuan party, the PP, and lock in a number of the

Papuan independents behind him.

By mid July, Mr Somare appeared to have the numbers with Pangu, the National Party, the Melanesian Alliance, the Morobe Independents Group and the League for National Advancement plus assorted in dependents lining up behind him. But he was without signifi cant Papuan representation in that group