Academia Nomad

One of the things you need to master in PNG politics is to understand subtleties and slips up during conversations, figurative speeches, presents, or presentations. It’s called “Tok-Bokis.”

Once, a former governor MP was given a traditional bilum (bag) full of corns, and a bounded green lizard by villagers during a ceremony he was invited to witness.

The ignorant governor took the present believing the electorate was happy with his performance.

The gifts had a meaning. Corn signified the Tok Pisin language “kon”, loosely translated “lies or unfulfilled promises.”

The lizard’s tongue splits into two at the edge. It signified that you mustn’t promise that which you won’t do.

Don’t be like the green lizard, or “kundu palai” as it is known in PNG. Don’t have a double-tongue. Say what you mean, and do what you say.

The presents were a way of the villagers saying the MP doesn’t keep his promises: unfulfilled promises during elections; and changing positions on issues he campaigned on when it became convenient.

There’s another popular Tok-Bokis you hear around this election time.

THUNDER WITHOUT RAIN

Basically it’s used to associate a MP who is very vocal and speaks out on national issues, but his province or district suffers from basic necessities.

Note to non-PNG readers: PNG voters see the primary role of their MPs as service delivery, not law makers. This means you can be vocal on important national issues and still lose your voters’ trust if you do not deliver services like road, ports, hospitals, schools and so forth.

You cannot blame the voters for prioritising service delivery over national issues. The reform in 1995 that abolished the provincial representatives also brought the responsibility of running the province under the ambit of the National MPs. Now they have the dual responsibility of service delivery as well as national responsibilities.

If a MP focuses on national issues but fails to deliver services, he is referred to as Thunder without Rain or Lighting without Showers. You can see him on television and make newspaper headlines, but he’s never delivered services.

We’d had few vocal MPs in this parliament, who are accused of being just Thunders. It’s interesting to see how it plays out in the elections.

Ranking PNG’s IDEAL Prime Ministers

Who would you like to see become PNG’s Prime Minister? Below are politicians we think are PM material, ranking the top three (3) candidates. We also give reasons for why we think they are the best.

1. Dr Alan Marat of Melanesian Liberal Party

There’s probably only one true statesman in PNG parliament (with the passing of Sir Mek): Dr Alan Marat. Marat has serviced in senior ministerial positions including Ministry for Justice, served as Deputy PM, and served as Deputy Opposition Leader. He’s among the very few whose name has never been associated with corruption. And he is not known for switching sides when convenient. In all his debates, he carefully avoids name calling, and debates issues. He commands respect from both the opposition and government side. He takes the first position.

2. Alan Bird of National Alliance

Alan Bird as a governor cannot be PM. If he were to become PM he would have to relinquish his position as governor. Alan Bird’s debates are informed, and like Marat, focuses on issues and not individuals. Bird’s only problem has been that he was content to see Marape entertain garbage. How on earth did himself, Juffa, Kerenga Kua and Kramer let Basil return to the Deputy PM position in 2020 after he failed to change the government? These so called corruption fighters have also lived and dined in the same camp as those alleged of corruption. We have not seen the APEC report, the Masaratis, and Yoga funds. Even UBS report from Ombudsman Commission was not enough, we needed a new Commission of Inquiry. Bird, to his credit, has openly challenged the government he is part of on some issues. If we went for patriotism, Bird would take number 1 spot.

The sooner National Alliance realises that Patrick Prauitch is not a PM material the better for NA. Bird needs to get take over NA leadership.

3. Kerenga Kua of PNG National Party

Before 2019, Kua was up there with Marat. Since joining the government, he’s only been heard for his role in the negotiations for natural resources. He’s become silent for all practical reasons. That’s expected because he’s on the government side. But as stated above, he was content to accommodate alleged corruption among the government MPs. For Kua, Bird, Kramer and Juffa, keeping the government intact was more important than separating corrupt MPs and pushing for investigations. However, Kua and Marat remain the few real statesman.

4. This section we’ll lump all the names of the rest: Juffa, Kramer, Basil, Marape & O’Neil. Kramer & Juffa are more of activist politicians than PM materials. They are more useful in the opposition keeping the government accountable. They serve the country well as opposition MPs.

You can make the argument that Niccolò Machiavelli “The Prince” was written for O’Neill & Marape: power hungry.

Whilst Basil & Prauitch take pride in being yoyo politicians.

Marape gave Foreign Affairs Ministry to Prauitch in exchange for Prauitch dropping the Constitutional challenge on the validity of Marape’s election. Marape also accepted Basil back as Deputy PM after Basil unsuccessful tried to replace him as PM in 2020. Marape will do everything under the sun to stay in power as PM.

O’Neill is, well he’s O’Neill. Cunning, irresponsible, and power hungry.

Don’t rule out the possibility of O’Neill & Marape joining forces post 2012. They have one thing in common: they love the PM’s post.

What about Namah? He lacks the temperament to be PM. Duma is a unconsciously sliding MP. Davis, Abel, Ian-Lingstucky, Temu would better serve as ministers or vice-ministers.

What do you think of our list. Comment below and let us know.

This article follows from the earlier one titled “Guns, Criminals, Warlords & PNG MPs”. This one is a critique of Papua New Guineans tendency to be impressed by MPs.

After stepping down as Minister for National Planning, after video of him firing a military type high powered weapon went viral on social media, Paita apologized on his social media account (Facebook).

The post instantly drew widespread sympathy. Mostly from his followers, but few others as well, who probably don’t know that it’s a convention for representatives to resign if they engage in inappropriate action.

The question is whether Rainbow Paita should be praised for stepping down.

It really depends on which side you’re on, and how much you know about democratic convention (o practice). Elsewhere in developed democracies, MPs resign after such incidents. You are expected to resign. In fact, MPs resign over minor things.

For instance, in January 2018, Lord Bates, a British MP and government minister arrived late for parliament sitting. There was a question in parliament to him as a responsible minister. He was a few minutes late, and his first act was to notify parliament that he was resigning immediately for the “discourtesy of not being in place to answer the question” raised. His resignation was rejected by his peers later. But the point is: a government minister offered his resignation for just being late a few minutes.

In PNG, a government minister is praised for resigning after video of him firing high powered weapon goes viral on Facebook. See the difference?

People have to stop giving MPs too much praise.

A few days before that, photos circulated on social media of people somewhere in Port Moresby settlement carrying Powes Parkop on a chair. The worship of politicians in PNG is unparalleled.

There are questions police have to ask Rainbow Paita. In his FB post he claims he has a firearm lisence. Police have to ask whether the kind of license he holds allows him to handle military type weapons? If yes, what are the implications: can any citizen get a lisence and be eligible to handle high powered weapons? After all, every Papua New Guinean has equal rights as Paita. If his lisence allows him to handle high powered weapon, so does anyone in Morata or Busu or Tari. He says he fired the weapon in a private property. What does PNG laws say about target practice? Does any private property fall within the definition of environment acceptable for target practice? It may be that there is no such law, and that dislodging semi-automic weapon on private property is not illegal. After all, we are a country that cannot prosecute drug cartels because our laws don’t cover illicit drugs like cocaine and meth.

Rainbow only resigned because the video went viral. Not because he thinks what he did was unacceptable. If the video hadn’t gone viral, he wouldn’t have resigned.

His logic seems to be that: if what I’m doing doesn’t go viral on social it’s not wrong. Its only wrong when firing military type weapon goes viral on social media.

Papua New Guineans have to set a higher bar for their MPs. The standard is so low that MPs get praised for doing what is expected.

This is not an article intended to criticize Rainbow Paita. But to point out the insanity of a bar we set for ourselves. And the lack of critical thinking we posses.

On a positive not, it’s good to see Paita resign. But in a democracy, it’s supposed to be the norm, not an exception.

This title of the post will raise eyebrows (if not a storm), but I hope you read to the end to make sense of this post. I will confine this article to the seats in NCD.

Following the 2021 Port Moresby Northwest by-election we conducted small survey among 120 UPNG students and working class residents of POMNW. One of the questions we asked was what criteria did they use to cast their votes for the by-election, and what criteria would they use for 2022 elections. Below is a summary of the responses, including the top 4 criteria.

This was a high focus on policy issues. Quite possibly, participants’ education levels may have affected the responses we received. Of the 120 respondents we surveyed, 72% either had a degree or were studying towards a degree. Also, we cannot say for sure that when they actually voted, participants in our survey prioritised policies as much as they said they did. At the very least though, our participants showed an awareness that policies should be important in electoral contests.

The three main issues that voters said the candidates should talk about for Moresby Northwest were law and order issues in the electorate, economic opportunities, and health services.

We also asked the same policy question but with respect to the 2022 national elections. When asked to think about 2022, respondents said candidates and political parties should focus on how to deal with law and order issues, economic development, and corruption.

Regarding female candidates, 84% of those respondents who voted in 2017 said they did not cast a single preference for any of the three women who contested the Moresby Northwest seat (three out of the 35 Moresby Northwest candidates in 2017 were females).

48% of respondents who voted in 2017 said they would consider allocating one of their preferences to a female candidate in the Moresby Northwest by-election (one female candidate was standing), whilst 37% said they would do the same in the 2022 election.

When we asked what it would take for someone who was not planning to vote for a female candidate to allocate one of his or her preferences to a female candidate, we tended to get responses emphasising that participants would not vote for women candidates just because they were women. For example:

“She must not play the ‘gender card’ too much and concentrate on policy matters. Being male or female does not bring about changes we hope for but the right person with good quality.”

“My preference on women candidates will depend on their education qualifications and political party and policies of the party that she was endorsed by, her leadership qualities and someone who can fight for the common good for all people.”

As Figure 2 shows, when asked if they would vote a female candidate because she was a “women”, it got low response.

We also asked the respondents to pick the five political parties that they thought would win the most seats in the 2022 elections. The names that were mentioned the most were Pangu Pati, People’s National Congress, the Allegiance Party, the National Alliance Party, and the United Labour Party. However, the reasons respondents gave for selecting these parties were that these parties were either led by or, in the National Alliance Party’s case, composed of prominent individuals.

Our survey participants were urban and well educated, so we cannot claim our findings hold true for all of PNG. Yet, our findings are still interesting. Voters of the sort we surveyed are at least aware that policies should be important in electoral competition. At the same time, though, our participants were under no illusions about the nature of party politics in PNG.

Voters primarily saw parties as vehicles for prominent individuals. But it may also mean that female candidates endorsed by party with prominent individuals will draw some sort of votes.

This is an edited version of our article for Development Policy Blog. To read the full paper, go online an search for:

“PNG’s 2022 elections: parties, policies and women candidates”….. by Michael Kabuni, Minetta Kakarere, & Russel Kitau.

Over the weekend, a gun allegedly belonging to a PNG politician was “accidentally” discharged in Port Moresby, killing an by-stander.

The gun related death was confirmed by Assistant Police Commissioner Anthony Wagambie.

This follows a viral video of Finchfen MP and Minister Rainbow Paita firing a semi-automatic weapon towards the end of last year. After investigations, Paita was not charged.

It goes without saying that any ordinary Papua New Guinean would probably have faced prison time.

Paita justified his handling of the weapon on him having a firearm license. He didn’t clarify, and neither did the police, whether Paita’s license allowed him to handle a semi-automatic weapon.

There are only two more groups in PNG who are notorious for owning and operating guns. Criminal gangs and tribal warlords in the highlands of PNG.

Among these three groups, politicians “legally” own guns (there are few politicians who own guns).

If politicians own guns, and have license to handle semi-automatic firearms, shouldn’t we all be entitled to own and handle firearms as well?

Where do we draw the line on who owns and handles firearms?

After all, politicians are PNG citizens. Just like any ordinary citizens. Why shouldn’t we all own guns.

If politicians own guns because they feel unsafe, I know of thousand other Papua New Guineans who don’t feel safe.

In fact every young girl should own a gun!

Everyone who commutes to work on a bus, and has to pass through 4 Mile Bus Stop should own a gun. If you go to Koki Market any time of the day you are entitled to a semi-automatic weapon.

Where do we draw the line?

It’s either we all have guns, and license to handle semi-automatic firearms, or we don’t. There’s no justification for only MPs to own and handle guns.