The ruling Pangu Pati has drawn first blood in the Papua New Guinea national general elections with its leader and deputy leader retaining their seats on first count alone.

Of the five seats declared as of yesterday, Pangu has a head start with four MPs, James Marape (Tari-Pori); John Rosso (Lae), Philip Undialu (Hela Regional), Manasseh Makiba (Magarima) and the lone People’s National Congress (PNC) winner to date Elias Kapavore (Pomio).

While it is early days in an election marred by violence and alleged fraud, Pangu’s early gain, is a tiny foothold in a process that is expected to be completed by the return of writs on July 29.

• READ MORE: Other PNG general election reports

At the time of going to press, three more declarations were expected last night or early today.

Marape remains caretaker Prime Minister with his deputy John Rosso also as caretaker deputy PM.

Marape picked up 40,913 votes to retain his seat by a landslide in the first count.

This was 12,000 more votes than the number he picked up in 2017.

Undialu wins big
Undialu picked up a staggering 118,131 votes to come home, which was 79,910 votes more than the number he scored in 2017 elections.

Meanwhile, in Lae, Morobe Province, incumbent John Rosso scored a convicing 26,818 of the primary votes to emerge winner from the total allowable ballots of 57,144.

“Lae Open seat deserves a transparent leader and its needs good precise leadership,” Rosso said soon after his declaration by the returning officer.

“For my people of Lae to give me the mandate on absolute majority of 26,818 on first count is humbling.

“I am going to perform to the best of my ability as the Lae MP and a national leader.”

In Hela Province, Manasseh Makiba picked up 10,481 votes to run out winner, beating the mark he set in 2017 national election by 2500 more votes, while Pomio MP Elias Kapavore was declared winner by Returning Officer John Liskia at Palmalmal.

Pomio had a total allowable 23,355 ballots and Kapavore was re-elected with an absolute majority vote of 11,949 votes from the primary count.

Three other electorates
Meanwhile, three other electorates expected to be declared last night or early today were the New Ireland Regional, Namatanai and Kavieng Open seats.

People’s Progress Party leader Sir Julius Chan had taken a comfortable lead with 25,101 votes.

Treasurer and Pangu Party candidate Ian Ling-Stuckey was leading with 6898 votes and National Alliance candidate and Civil Aviation Minister Walter Schnaubelt was expected to retain his Kavieng Open seat.

Counting in the rest of the provinces are continuing and the Post-Courier online news is bringing the latest updates for readers across the country.

Counting for National Capital District, Jiwaka, Western Highlands and Chimbu has not started.

Western Highlands, Jiwaka went to the polls on Friday while Chimbu polled yesterday.

Peter Korugl is a PNG Post-Courier journalist. Republished with permission.

Papua New Guinea’s People’s National Congress is shaping up as the party to watch as the country’s general election approaches.

Nominations are set to finish later today with campaigning then in earnest through to early July when voting starts.

The Peoples’ National Congress (PNC) is led by Peter O’Neill who lost the prime ministership to James Marape in 2019.

The party, of which Marape was also once a member, had dominated PNG politics for the previous eight years.

RNZ Pacific’s PNG correspondent Scott Waide said the PNC had endorsed more than 90 candidates which has created a force to reckon with.

“Ninety candidates all over the country means that there is a higher possibility of PNC banking on its chances to get the members into parliament,” he said.

“PANGU has also put out a list of candidates. Surprisingly a lot of women in the PANGU group – at least five I think.”

Waide said the party of the late deputy prime minister, Sam Basil, the United Labour Party (ULP) is also shaping up to do well in this poll.

The PNG Parliament is larger than before, with the addition of seven new seats taking it to 118 members.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Central to the selection of the prime minister in Papua New Guinea following a general election is Section 63 of PNG’s Organic Law on Integrity of Political Parties and Candidates (OLIPPAC), which was passed in 2001 (and then amended in 2003).

Section 63 requires that the Governor-General invites the party with the highest number of MPs following a general election to form the government.

The main aim of the section is to ensure that the appointment of a prime minister after a general election is done in an “orderly way with direct relationship to the way voters expressed their wishes”.

• READ MORE: Other PNG elections reports

Analysis shows that the passage of OLIPPAC has influenced government formation. First, it has increased the probability that, as is now a legislative requirement, the PM comes from the largest party.

This has happened in all elections since OLIPPAC was legislated (2002, 2007, 2012 and 2017), but only happened in two out of the five pre-OLIPPAC elections (1977 and 1982).

For example, as Table 1 shows, in 1997 the People’s National Congress Party (PNC) had the sixth highest number of MPs but still was able to put forward the successful candidate for PM.

Second, Section 63 also seems to have increased the odds of an incumbent PM being returned. Since the first post-independence election in 1977, five incumbent prime ministers have been re-appointed as PM following one of the country’s nine national elections (see Table 2).

Two developments closely related
The other four times a new prime minister was appointed post-elections. The five times the incumbent was returned are 1977 (Somare), 1987 (Wingti), 2007 (Somare), 2012 (O’Neill) and 2017 (O’Neill). Only two of the five incumbent returns are before the first enactment of OLIPPAC in 2001, and the other three are all post-OLIPPAC.

These two developments are closely related. Over the life of the Parliament, MPs tend to join the party of the PM, meaning that that party goes into the election with by far the largest number of MPs. For instance, PNC won 27 seats in 2012, led by the incumbent PM Peter O’Neill, and formed the government.

More MPs joined PNC, and by the time the 2017 elections came around, PNC had 55 MPs. Even though PNC lost 34 sitting MPs, with only 21 getting re-elected, it added seven new MPs in the 2017 elections.

This took PNC’s numbers to 28 MPs, and, after the 2017 elections, it wound up forming the government.

About half the incumbent MPs don’t get re-elected every election, but in general voters do not vote along party lines. Even if they do, and even if there is a swing against the PM’s party, because it has such an advantage going in, it is likely to emerge as the largest party as well.

In 2010, the Supreme Court ruled the restrictions imposed by OLIPPAC on the movement of MPs between parties unconstitutional. This means that MPs can move parties in the period between when they are declared winners following the national election and the appointment of the PM.

What happened in 1987, 1992 and 1997 — when parties with fewer MPs formed the government — could be repeated, Section 63 notwithstanding. All MPs would need to do is submit their letter of resignation to the party that endorsed them for the election, together with a letter of acceptance from the new party they intend to join, to the Registry of Political Parties and Candidates before the election of the PM, and their movement to the new party would become official.

Little incentive to leave
However, we have not seen that happening. This is because there is little incentive for MPs in the largest party to leave if it is likely to become the party of government. Rather, other MPs will join, by joining either the largest party or the governing coalition.

The only incumbent PM not to benefit from the passage of OLIPPAC was, ironically, its architect, Sir Mekere Morauta. He did not go into the election with the largest party, and he certainly did not emerge from it with the largest either.

This should remind us that there is no guarantee that the incumbent PM will be returned post-election. But it does seem that Section 63 has had the unintended consequence of increasing the probability of this happening.

Most view stability as a good thing, but the problem is that the more likely the incumbent is to be returned at the general election, the more pressure there will be to remove him (or perhaps one day her) by a vote of no confidence – since that becomes the only way to do it.

It may be no coincidence that both PMs who have so far benefited from Section 63 (Somare in 2002 and 2007 and O’Neill in 2012 and 2017) lost power mid-term on the floor of Parliament.

Note that the provisions of Section 63 of OLIPPAC do not apply to a vote of no confidence. In a vote of no confidence, any political party (or MP) is eligible to nominate a candidate to contest for the prime minister’s seat. Even an MP without a political party is eligible to be nominated for the PM’s post.

Section 63 was passed with good intentions, but has led to a situation in which increasing stability either side of elections may be reducing it between elections.

Michael Kabuni is a lecturer in political science at the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Papua New Guinea. Dr Stephen Howes is the Director of the Development Policy Centre and a Professor of Economics at the Crawford School. This research was undertaken with the support of the ANU-UPNG Partnership, an initiative of the PNG-Australia Partnership, funded by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. The views are those of the authors only.

Papua New Guinea’s prime minister, Peter O’Neill, has successfully obtained a stay order in the Supreme Court preventing his arrest.

This comes pending a review of the 2014 arrest warrant issued, despite a recent ruling in the National Court stating it is not reviewable.

The PNG Post Courier reports an urgent stay application was filed following Tuesday’s decision by National Court Justice Collin Makail.

A lawyer representing the Prime Minister, Mal Varitimos QC, appealed the matter after highlighting inconsistencies in the August 8 ruling in which Justice Makail dismissed a three-year-old stay order on O’Neill’s arrest warrant.

Yesterday, Varitimos submitted that among the inconsistencies, Justice Makail overlooked Supreme Court binding case references.

These binding references relate to former Attorney General Ano Pala’s appeal against his 2014 warrant of arrest, an order by the District Court where the Supreme Court upheld it saying it was reviewable by the National Court.

In a 2014 decision of the five-men bench of the supreme court — considering the power, functions, duties and responsibilities of the police commissioner — it ruled a warrant of arrest was amendable as opposed to Justice Makail’s ruling.

Arrest warrant challenged
The Supreme Court considered the question of whether the police commissioner had a sufficient standing to seek leave for judicial review of the decision to use the arrest warrant, which is subject to the current challenge.

The submission by Varitimos claims binding references were erroneously over-looked and as a result Chief Justice Sir Salamo Injia granted the stay orders.

The PNG Post-Courier also reports police commissioner Gari Baki will be inviting O’Neill for an interview in light of Justice Makail’s August 8 ruling.

“As Commissioner of Police, I welcome the decision of the court as it now paves the way for us to move forward on this matter.

“Since the Court decision I have had consultations with my senior officers on the case and as the Commissioner of Police, myself, to invite the Prime Minister to come in for an interview.

“I want the people of Papua New Guinea to appreciate that this is a very sensitive and delicate matter involving the Prime Minister of the Independent State of Papua New Guinea.

“The interview is not a requirement by law but an existing and established protocol the constabulary has engaged over the years for leaders and high profile people,” Baki said.

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Papua New Guinea’s National Court has dismissed stay orders preventing the arrest of Prime Minister Peter O’Neill.

This means police can now execute the arrest on the prime minister.

This comes after a judicial review in relation to the June 2014 warrant of arrest for the prime minister which was dismissed by Justice Collin Makail in the Waigani National Court yesterday.

The former police commissioner Geoffrey Vaki had challenged the legality of the warrant of arrest that was issued by the District Court by chief magistrate Nerrie Eliakim on June 12,  2014.

Despite the judgment made on the dismissal yesterday morning, a second attempt by the prime minister’s lawyer in the afternoon to delay the court orders for 14 days was made but failed.

Justice Makail said it was an abuse of court process and another attempt by the defendant to delay the court process.

Justice Makail said the defendant has the re-course in the Supreme Court.

Outside the court, director for National and Anti-Corruption, Mathew Damaru said it was now up to the police to issue a warrant of arrest.

Damaru said that the onus was on the police commissioner to act on the warrant and that it was out of respect of the office to leave it to commissioner Gari Baki to act on the warrant.

On June 12, 2014, a warrant of arrest was issued by Eliakim on the application of officers of the National Fraud Squad and Anti-Corruption Directorate.

This was in relation to allegations of official corruption made against the prime minister in relation to monetary benefits for Paul Paraka lawyers.

Loop PNG reports O’Neill’s lawyers will be appealing the National Court’s decision in the Supreme Court.

Nellie Setepano is a reporter with the PNG Post-Courier.

• Lawyers to seek stay on PM’s arrest
• More PNG election stories

The tenth sitting of parliament suffered a delay and tensions broke out between Nick Kuman from the People’s National Congress and Lukas Dekena of the PNG party over who was the MP-elect for the Gumine seat, Radio New Zealand International reports.

EMTV News reports there was “commotion” as both members refused to move from their seat when asked by parliamentary staff to do so.

Dekena was declared on July 28 and Kuman on July 30, so the matter is currently before the court.

Due to such issues and the fact several seats are still to be declared — only 105 of the 111 writs have been returned — Kerenga Kua, MP-elect for Sinasina-Yonggamugl Open, visibly voiced his concerns, urging the Chief Justice to stop proceedings as members of the Alliance and PNC yelled at one another from across the room.

This prompted his Alliance colleagues to stand in solidarity with him before things eventually calmed down as newly elected MPs were sworn in.

O’Neill was the only candidate put forward by PNC after the party was invited to do so by new speaker Joe Pomat (PNC) on advice of the Governor-General, Loop PNG reports.

PNC holds majority
Pomat beat Allan Marat of the Melanesian Liberal Party 60 votes to 46, while PNC was invited to nominate a candidate for Prime Minister because the PNC coalition had the majority of seats (60), compared to the Alliance’s 47, EMTV reported just after 10am.

Both camps had been confident they had the numbers going into the sitting.

O’Neill’s appointment marks the end of Papua New Guinea’s tumultuous election period which began in April.

The country’s 2017 general election has been marred with electoral roll issues, shortages of ballot papers, disputed ballot boxes and violence, as reported by Asia Pacific Report.

For those wanting a change of government, the only consolation seems to be the decrease in O’Neill’s majority and the Alliance’s determination to stand by “the cry of the people” following a press conference.

Kua said the Alliance is not a lost cause and O’Neill’s government can expect to be “taken to task” over every policy.

With several seats still undeclared, the make-up of Papua New Guinea’s tenth parliament is still to be cemented.

• More PNG election stories

The current Papua New Guinea government is being accused of being the most corrupt in the short history of Papua New Guinea. It has tampered with the national constitution, bent it, or even created new laws to escape being held responsible and avoided passing tougher legislation to fight corruption.

It’s so sad — a sad scenario for Papua New Guinea indeed.

Before going into the 2012 general election, Prime Minister Peter O’Neill promised the nation that he would curb corruption. He set up the Investigation Task Force Sweep (ITFS) which has done an excellent job exposing and prosecuting corruption.

But why did O’Neill disband it? Why did Police Commissioner Garry Baki put a “vetting” on the high-profile investigations cases that include accusations against O’Neill?

At the 2012 Alotau Accord, the governing coalition partners pledged to table in the Parliament the Anti-money Laundering Legislation, Whistleblowers Legislation, Freedom of Information Legislation and Independent Commission against Corruption Act (ICAC).

But during the People’s National Congress (PNC) reign from 2012 to 2017 with its coalition partners, none of these laws have got passed in the Parliament as promised during the election pledges to fight corruption.

Instead, O’Neill sees fit to legislate a Cyber-Crime Law and even proposing amendments to change election dates and nomination fees.

‘Sitting’ on whistleblowers law
Several times the Opposition have blasted the government for “sitting” on the Whistleblowers Protection Act and not tabling it in Parliament.

Even National Court Justice Martin Ipang spoke of the need for the Whistleblowers Act in the courtroom when ruling on Western Governor Ati Wobiro’s case.

Citizens needed to be protected if they have heard about corruption, or if they seen it, or if they become victim of corruption and want to report this.

Papua New Guinea needs the Whistleblowers Act. This is a very important law for PNG together with the ICAC. But the PNC-led government has failed and fooled the nation.

A new government that will be formed after the 2017 elections must see to ensure these laws are enacted.

People would be asking why time and again “most corrupt” politicians are not exposed and brought to justice.

Here is an answer from one politician with his observation. Samuel Basil, a two-term Bulolo MP says: “PNC’s best bet (if they lose government) is to have another veteran MP’s political party to take reign.

“Why? Because it’s like having partners in crime taking control over once again, or simply put it, it is corruption changing hands.

“If they bring their brothers down they will all go down together, it’s like they all have been closely knitted together.”

Only fresh new MPs without any connections with the current and past regimes can clean this country up — there is no other way.

There has to be a “scrubbing” period. Citizens from all walks of life need to face the judiciary to “clear” anything against them.

Your vote in 2017 means, “save PNG, or destroy it”. Over to you.

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