Papua New Guinea's government has been taken to task in parliament about preparedness for next year's general elections.
Polling booth PNG election 2017 Photo: RNZI/ Johnny Blades
PNG elections only come around every five years, and are eagerly anticipated. But the last few installments have been chaotic and plagued by flaws in the common roll, as well as voter fraud and election-related violence.
Concern that both the electoral commission and government are unprepared for 2022 is compounded by the fact that parliament is contemplating some major changes to the electoral system at a time when even the basic requirements of running an election are yet to be addressed.
With less than a year before polling is scheduled to begin, prime minister James Marape revealed there is a private member's bill (introduced by government MP Nick Kuman) seeking to change PNG's electoral system from Limited Preferential Voting back to First Past the Post.
"But as the law says, we have the Limited Preferential Voting system that we will go by," Marape said in parliament.
"Personally for me, I prefer LPV, it is fair and friendly for all. But again, this parliament is totally at liberty to discuss this private member's bill."
The opposition MP Davis Steven took exception to the haphazard way in which such a major proposed change has come before parliament.
"It should never happen that a private member's bill be brought to deal with the constitution, because it's the responsibility of the prime minister of the day to look after the constitution," Steven said.
The idea of reverting back to First Past the Post has also been mooted by PNG's previous prime minister Peter O'Neill. But it is not universally popular among members and may struggle to get the two-thirds support among MPs.
James Marape has indicated it's likely that the Limited Preferential Voting system will be retained for the 2022 elections. Photo: PNG PM Media
Time running out
David Steven warned against major constitutional change at this late stage in the parliamentary cycle.
"Do we have the time? Given the process prescribed for the amendment of constitutional law, do we have the time to do it? We're coming back from two long adjournments when we should have been here doing this business. Secondly, do we have the funds?"
While limited testing has given a poor picture of how widespread Covid-19 is in PNG, the government has now opted to treat the virus as something the population must learn to live with, urging a business-as-usual approach - this includes forging ahead with elections.
Marape told parliament the 2022 elections would proceed on schedule, with the writs to be issued in April.
He also responded to questions about whether PNG's problematic common roll would be updated. The roll used in recent elections contained names of many dead people, and was missing many more eligible voters.
The prime minister noted budget submissions of over 300-million kina each for both the updating of the roll and the delayed national census, saying they would use the 2021 census to update the roll.
Election time is time for festivities in PNG: former Prime Minister Peter O'Neill on the campaign trail in 2017. Photo: PMO Media
"In the later half of this year, the Electoral Commissioner and his team from this population database will verify the (names of those) eighteen years and above to be migrated into what will become the common roll," Marape explained.
"That will take place in December, January, February, March, for the common roll verification and updates."
Women's seats
Lawmakers have another major constitutional change to consider for elections after a special parliamentary committee recently proposed for parliamentary seats to be reserved for women.
To address the problem of having no women MPs in parliament, Marape said a couple of options were on the table.
"One is specialised reserved seats for women only. That might require major legal amendments.
"We're also looking at the option of: if women they go and contest, and if no women are elected, (we adopt) something similar to the Samoan model. Then of those who contest, the best performed women in our four or five regions can be given a seat on the floor of parliament."
Samoa's constitution stipulates that 10 percent of MPs must be women, whether or not this number of women win seats in electorates.
"So those proposals are being run through," Marape explained, although opportunities to do it in the current parliament term's remaining sessions are limited.
There are currently no women in MPs in Papua New Guinea's 111-seat parliament Photo: RNZ Pacific/ Koroi Hawkins
Meanwhile, the Rigo MP, Lekwa Gure called for the Electoral Commission to lay down the law in relation to candidates campaigning before they were allowed to.
"All of us know, and there's lots of public commentary on the issue, there are many individuals and maybe some parties that are already out there doing early campaigning under the guise of awareness," Gure said.
But the Electoral Commissioner, Patalias Gamato, already has a lot on his plate, besides trying to hold candidates to account and trying to update the common roll.
Gamato is facing corruption charges stemming from fraud investigations involving the 2017 general elections.