2012 Papua New Guinean general election
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This lists parties that won seats. See the complete results below.
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General elections were held in Papua New Guinea from 23 June until around 13 July 2012,[1] after being postponed by a further week to allow for security personnel to crisscross the country, particularly the highland provinces.[2][3] The elections followed controversy over incomplete electoral rolls and a constitutional crisis caused by a dispute over the office of prime minister between Michael Somare and Peter O'Neill.
Background
In 2011 a dispute arose between Sir Michael Somare and Peter O'Neill over who was the legitimate prime minister. Somare was backed by the Supreme Court, while O'Neill gained the support of a majority of the parliament, the Army and the civil service. O'Neill was internationally recognised as holding the office of prime minister.[4] Both claimants also appointed their own police chiefs and heads of the military. Amidst continuing conflicts, a mutiny occurred in 2012 against factions of the military. There were also accusations of Australian partisanship over Prime Minister Julia Gillard's support for the O'Neill government.
Election date
There was a suggestion by the parliament to postpone the election for up to a year in the light of an unprepared process in regards to the implementation of a biometric voting system and an only 60% complete voter roll. Deputy Prime Minister Belden Namah was a proponent of this idea saying the election commission and the census had failed in the count of the population. However, this was decided against by O'Neill who said the United Nations and Australia would step up to support the process. However, he later retracted the comment.[5]
On 5 April the parliament voted to postpone the election for six months by a vote of 63 to 11, with O'Neill and Namah voting for the postponement. The Parliamentary motion instructed head of the election commission,
Electoral system
The National parliament is elected from 111 single-member electorates. 89 of them are open electorates distributed around the country. Additionally, each of the 22 provinces elects 1 regional member, which also takes the title of provincial governor.[8] The candidates are elected using Limited preferential voting, where the voter ranks 3 candidates in the order of preference.[9]
Parties and campaign
Since the office of the prime minister was disputed, Somare's National Alliance Party has splintered into several factions following the constitutional crisis.[10] O'Neill, who originally had no party base, formed an alliance in March with Belden Namah, former Prime Ministers Sir Mekere Morauta and Bill Skate to contest the election.[11]
Following the disintegration of Somare's party, Dame Carol Kidu assumed the title of Leader of the Opposition despite having no parliamentary following. Kidu is the parliament's only female member and was born in Australia.[12]
As a result of
Constitutional crisis developments
Following a Supreme Court's ruling,
Chief Justice Sir Salamo Injia, one of the three judges who ruled that Somare was the legitimate prime minister was arrested in May and later charged with sedition.[15] Justice Nicholas Kirriwom, who joined Injia's decision was also arrested on 28 May and "will be charged with sedition", according to a police spokesman.[16]
A splinter group of police officers blockaded parliament on 26 May to prevent the holding of a special sitting of parliament, at which MPs voted for a state of emergency and rejected the Supreme Court’s ruling that Somare should be reinstated. The police leadership then called for an end to the political stalemate, while Michael Ogio refused to sign the document approving the sitting which called for a state of emergency, or any documents, until a government is formed after the election.[17]
Observers
Three sets of observation teams monitored the election:
- Domestic Observation: 22 teams (joint project between the PNG National Research Institute and the Australian National University)
- Commonwealth Observers
- Transparency International
Controversies
The electoral process delayed the release of a report into the sinking of the MV Rabaul Queen. A Commission of Inquiry had been set up and led by Warwick Andrew, who submitted the final report to caretaker Prime Minister Peter O'Neill. O'Neill said that the 200-page report would first need to be tabled in parliament before its release and would thus have to wait for the new parliament to sit.[18]
Cannibalism
In the remote jungle area of
Conduct
Amidst the election days, Deputy Prime Minister Belden Namah said that PM Peter O'Neill should be "ashamed" for allowing the election to take place as scheduled because of the problems with the voter rolls in urban areas and blaming Australia for contributing to the claimed pandemonium in saying: "Cries have been received from all parts of PNG echoing and demonstrating that our country was and is not ready to proceed with elections this last week. What a disaster. Peter O'Neill should be ashamed for listening to the PNG Electoral Commissioner and its Australian advisers." Though he said there were over 200 Australian advisers working for the election commission, The Australian claimed there were "just 22 Australian logistical advisers". On 28 June, O'Neill appealed to the Electoral Commissioner Andrew Trawen to release supplementary common rolls after many people had reported not being on the electoral rolls at voting centres. He also said of Namah that "I'm fed up with this political opportunism. It is not the job of politicians to run elections. That is the job of the election commissioner." Paul Barker, the executive director of the Institute of National Affairs, said that it was common to see errors in the electoral rolls and that "it was wide scale in the 2007 poll, but it seems worse now. The current roll hasn't been updated. The roll has names where people lived 20 years ago." He also said that Trawen was not entirely to blame as "the electoral commission only gets a trickle of money in the early years, then big cash just before the election. In that time, they cannot be doing what they're supposed to be doing."[7]
Other problems during the election process included security measures and consequent delays. The first day of voting was extended by an extra day in the
There were reports of underage, illegal voting, as well as the poor quality of the indelible ink used to mark voters, which facilitated double voting.
Parliamentary Speaker
The voting timeframe was also speculated to being increased as the highlands provinces would not finish in time. The Bougainville area was also inaccessible as the GEC did not have the ships to transport its team to the said outlying atolls until the following week. However, vote counting had already started in the other provinces where voting had finished, despite protests against the process.[19]
Despite the problems, on 2 July, Andrew Trawen said that, according to national law, vote counting would begin as soon as possible as "that is the procedure we've followed over the years, we have not swayed from that. We will continue to abide by that provision of the law."[19][28]
Electoral observers said the election was not a failure, even though they were not in full praise.[13]
Results
The National Alliance Party of former Prime Minister Michael Somare lost more than 20 seats in the election. Conversely, the People's National Congress Party gained more than 20 seats. Additionally, the Truth Heritage Empowerment Party, which was not represented in the previous parliament, gained 12 seats.
Somare, who won the East Sepik Provincial seat for the National Alliance Party, said that "everywhere people have said, 'Ours is a sorry vote. We want to show, the people of PNG, a Sepik who represented us and represented the whole country should be not treated in that way.'" It followed his comments that he was set to retire but he changed his mind as "just at a tick of the Speaker's pen, he says I'm out, and I'm out of parliament. My idea is to get National Alliance and its coalition partners back into government, then say goodbye to them, stay as a backbencher and stay in my province," after saying that he would spurn any coalition overtures because "they stabbed me in the back after keeping them for 9½ years, making them ministers, very important portfolio."[29]
On 6 July, when the electoral process was supposed to conclude, it was announced that the election could continue for about a week longer.
Prime Minister Peter O'Neill was announced as the winner of his contest in the Ialiba-Panga electorate in the Southern Highlands Province with 44,917 (75%) of the votes.[30] He then said: "In a very turbulent 10-month period the PNC has led the government and provided stability, laying the foundation for economic growth and rebuilding our infrastructure, by introducing free education, free health care and unveiling an infrastructure development program. People obviously want these policies and programs to continue and are turning up in droves to support PNC candidates;" while adding that he would form the next government.[26]
References
- ^ a b Sean Dorney and Liam Fox in Port Moresby. "PNG elections could be extended". Abc.net.au. Retrieved 2012-07-11.
- ^ a b Hamish McDonald (2012-06-29). "PNG poll falls behind as security stretched". Smh.com.au. Retrieved 2012-07-11.
- ^ "Will polls resolve Papua New Guinea deadlock?". Bbc.co.uk. 2012-06-23. Retrieved 2012-07-11.
- ^ "PNG MP commends Carr over comments". Business Spectator. 2007-10-22. Retrieved 2012-07-11.
- ^ "Dep PM Namah supports on-time PNG election". The Sydney Morning Herald. 16 March 2012.
- ^ "PNG parliament votes to defer election". News.brisbanetimes.com.au. 2012-04-05. Retrieved 2012-07-11.
- ^ a b Blackwell, Eoin (2012-08-02). "PNG PM 'should be ashamed', deputy says". The Australian.
- ^ "Papua New Guinea National Elections 2012: Final Report". Commonwealth of Nations. 13 September 2012. Retrieved 19 May 2015.
- ^ "Voting". Electoral commission of Papua New Guinea. Archived from the original on 16 March 2014. Retrieved 19 May 2015.
- ^ "PNG's NA fears election delays". Rnzi.com. 2012-03-14. Retrieved 2012-07-11.
- ^ "O'Neill, Namah Parties Join Forces for PNG Elections". Pidp.eastwestcenter.org. 2012-03-05. Archived from the original on 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2012-07-11.
- ^ "Qld-born woman new PNG opposition leader". The Sydney Morning Herald. 15 February 2012.
- ^ a b c Hamish McDonald (2012-07-07). "Big money battles tradition in PNG election". Smh.com.au. Retrieved 2012-07-11.
- ^ "MPs to elect new PNG prime minister". Abc.net.au. 2012-05-29. Retrieved 2012-07-11.
- ^ Eoin Blackwellm (26 May 2012). "PNG calls state of emergency in capital". Sydney Morning Herald.
- ^ "PNG tension rises as judge arrested". Sydney Morning Herald. 28 May 2012.
- ^ "PNG Governor-General won't sign anything". World News Australia. 27 May 2012. Archived from the original on 29 May 2012. Retrieved 29 May 2012.
- ^ "PNG election delays public release of ferry report". Abc.net.au. 2012-06-29. Retrieved 2012-07-11.
- ^ a b c Hamish McDonald, Port Moresby (2012-07-04). "PNG cult killings disrupt elections". Smh.com.au. Retrieved 2012-07-11.
- ^ Pearlman, Jonathan (5 July 2012). "Cannibal killers delay Papua New Guinea poll". Telegraph. London.
- ^ "29 arrested over PNG cannibalism". Radio Australia. 6 July 2012.
- ^ Radio New Zealand International (4 July 2012). "Charges in PNG for alleged election tampering". Radio New Zealand International.
- ^ Liam Fox (25 June 2012). "Fraud, violence cloud PNG election". ABC News.
- ^ The National (4 July 2012). "Polling officer arrested for tampering with ballot boxes". The National.
- ^ PINA (25 June 2012). "PNG voting marred by violence". PINA.
- ^ a b Blackwell, Eoin (2012-08-02). "PNG's O'Neill says he will form government". The Australian.
- ^ "PNG's Speaker charged during 2012 elections". ABC News. Abc.net.au. 9 July 2012. Retrieved 2012-07-11.
- ^ "PNG's electoral commissioner defends vote counting process". ABC News. Abc.net.au. July 2012. Retrieved 2012-07-11.
- ^ Hamish Mcdonald (2012-07-03). "Sir Michael Somare Set For PNG Parliament Come Back..." Stuff.co.nz. Retrieved 2012-07-11.
- ^ "PNGEC Election Results". results.pngec.gov.pg. Archived from the original on 20 July 2012. Retrieved 13 January 2022.