In parliament on On August 9, 97 MPs voted for incumbent James Marape to remain Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea. None voted against him. His rival and predecessor, Peter O’Neill, walked out of the room in disgust.
The parliamentary vote concludes a long and deeply flawed election, even by the standards of a country known for its dismal polls. Mr. Marape’s Pangu party won only 36 of 118 seats. But he also has the support of 17 parties in his coalition and several independents, giving him near-total control of parliament, at least until some lawmakers are inevitably drawn in by rivals. Not that their seats were all honorably won. Paul Barker, the director of the Institute of National Affairs, a think tank in Port Moresby, the capital, believes each poll is getting worse in terms of the scale and extent of fraud. This, he said, was “the worst election ever.”
Papua New Guinea’s 9 million people live in the most linguistically diverse nation, with some 850 mutually incomprehensible languages. Despite abundant natural resources, including gas, gold, timber, tin and coffee, gdp per person remains below $3,000, much like in Honduras. Over the past decade, the country has become a major exporter of natural gas, but few residents have benefited from it. Mr Marape promised to “take back” more of the wealth from the mostly foreign resource extraction companies. But corruption is a big part of the problem. Even honest prime ministers end up making deals with unscrupulous politicians. Voters see little prospect for long-term improvement, so they resort to the short-term gains that come from selling their votes.
Voter fraud is most rampant in the highlands, the central backbone of the country, where around 40% of the population live. One tactic is to hijack ballot boxes, either to destroy them or to stuff them. Joe Ketan, an expert on politics and society in Papua New Guinea, who lives in the mountainous interior, observed the election in two provinces near his home. He found that “all ballots were marked by the candidates and their agents.” Much of this fraud is orchestrated at the local level, with rival candidates agreeing to distribute all available ballots among themselves. In one province, women lined up for hours in the heat to vote before being turned away by youths armed with bush knives.
Authorities halted counting in many constituencies, leaving it up to the courts to decide whether or not to declare these elections a “failure”. Fear of official bias in declaring ballot boxes suspicious can itself be a trigger for violence. Schools in the capital were forced to close for a week after machete-wielding men rampaged outside a counting center because the returning officer set aside several ballot boxes from their candidate’s area. Mr Barker warns of a corrosive “highlandisation” of the process in the northern part of the continent. In the south and on the islands off its eastern coast, elections generally go much more smoothly.
Deaths, at least, have so far been fewer than in previous elections. Some 55 people were killed in the polls this year, compared to around 200 in 2017. Many killings then took place after the announcement of the results and during the recriminations that followed. This time around there was a much heavier security presence. In some cases, however, police and soldiers have themselves been responsible for deaths. On August 9, police shot and killed five people protesting the result in a highland province.
Mr. Marape promises to remedy many of these problems. He must do it quickly. Incoming prime ministers have an 18-month grace period during which they cannot legally be removed from office. Most then face a vote of no confidence, which is how Mr Marape himself became prime minister – at the expense of Mr O’Neill – in 2019. If Mr Marape can hold on to government without making too many dodgy deals, he may even manage to do some good for his beleaguered citizens. It is more likely that the 2027 elections will be even worse. ■