What does 2022 have in store for PNG?

Papua New Guinea goes to the polls in June this year with many pinning their hopes on the outcome of the elections. These elections are pivotal not just in terms of the bread and butter socioeconomic issues but also in dealing with a final political settlement for Bougainville. The next government will have to put PNG on the road to economic recovery and settle matters with Bougainville and regional powers. Events in the region involving the spat over the Election of the General Secretary of the Pacific Island Forum Secretariat and the riots in Solomon Islands have drawn PNG into the geopolitical tug or war between China and the West. Will geopolitics influence the outcome of the elections? Will Papua New Guineans go to the polls conscious of the broader national and international ramifications of the choices? Or will they vote for beer, lamb flambs and tribesmen?

PNG has and unbroken election history having regularly held elections every five years since 1977.  At independence in 1975, PNG inherited  a Westminster system of government although it has a unicameral Parliament unlike Britain and Australia which have upper houses. Nevertheless King Henry III and Simon de Monfort would probably recognize PNG’s mad Parliament which regularly goes into fits when a new government is being formed. Likewise, the knights in medieval England would probably be at ease amongst PNGs political candidates and their supporters clashing over who should take the seat of power. It is likely that the 2022 elections will be more corrupt and violent than previous elections as some of the characters that won with very dubious numbers last time are in charge of the country.

Preparations for this year’s elections have been slow. The first National Election Steering Committee meeting that was held in June last year not attended by the Electoral Commission and the PNG Defence Force. Provincial Police Commanders have also raised concerns about the lack of Provincial Election Steering Committee meetings and updating of common rolles during a conference in Port Moresby last November. The national government has allocated K600 million (US150 million dollars) for the conduct of the elections. Australia has traditionally supported PNG’s elections however this time around its role will be under much scrutiny as it must not be seen to favour an outcome that aligns with western interests. PNG’s current political divide between former Prime Minister Peter O’Neill and current Prime Minister James Marape traverses the geopolitical fault-line between China and west with the former PM’s infrastructure projects being financed by China and the current PM’s COVID response being financed by the west. Whilst PNG’s elections can be unpredictable, both men are likely to be top contenders for the Prime Ministership after the 2022 national general elections.

 Prime Minister Marape came into power with a nationalist agenda to Take Back PNG but many now feel at the end of his tenure that their lives have gone backward.  A recent household survey conducted by Unicef and the World Bank found that over 98% of households experienced financial anxiety with over 60% reporting that their incomes  have remained static. Of the 26 554 grade 12 students that graduated last year, 11, 373 find themselves with no offers for further education by the education system. Whoever the next Prime Minister is will have to contend with the effects of COVID19 on the economy and try to ensure the well-being of the citizens. There will be big challenges in health, law and order, and the economy. But the biggest challenge will be seen early this year when schools have to deal with the influx of new students brought into the system by the government’s free education policy. PNG’s poorly funded schools will be overflowing with students as a result of a government policy created out of political expediency.

PNG’s 11^th Parliament will shape its post-COVID19 and post-Bougainville worlds. The people of Bougainville will be anxious to know about their political future while the rest of PNG will see for themselves whether this election will deliver its promises or just be another disappointment. The world will be watching whether PNG turns to the east or remains with the west. Meanwhile workers who carry a disproportionate amount of the nation’s tax burden will be wondering if there is any relief in sight.

The new government will have to send the right signals about foreign direct investment in PNG. Exploration activities in PNG’s resource sector have not recovered from the downturn triggered by the global financial crisis nearly a decade ago. This has been exacerbated by erratic policy behaviour such as the expropriation of the Ok Tedi mine, tearing up of resource agreements and shutting down of the Porgera mine. Whilst the nationalist stance taken is laudable, everyone needs to be mindful that whilst we does own the resources, we do not own the capital needed to extract those resources. Increasing the country’s risk profile does no one any favours and perhaps 2022 and beyond is a time for toning down on the nationalist rhetoric.

Growth in the non-resource sector will continue to be impeded by legacy issues and the environmental challenges. Security challenges brought about by the impact of COVID19 on the economy and the national general elections will continue to affect the sector. Whilst the access to the electricity grid is expanding, access to reliable power supply will remain an issue this year. Water supply is becoming increasingly unreliable even in the nation’s capital and will continue to plague urban dwellers. Poor transport links and the difficult terrain mean that many rural farmers have limited market access. Whilst access to mobile telecommunications has greatly improved, costs remain relatively high and internet connections can be very unreliable. These issues are not going away in 2022 and the new government will have to provide the nation with some solutions.

On a more sobering note, the National Research Institute recently published a paper that may help put the events of 2022 into perspective. The paper contends that many of the issues of governance PNG faces are not new. They are part of the long process of historical change PNG has been undergoing. PNG has defied the odds and not gone the path of failed states and dictatorship but its has also not fully lived up to its full potential. The paper has a pointed message for those who think the 2022 elections will bring about much change in PNG;

“Outsiders often make the assumption that the next change in the cast of characters will bring about more stable, principle-based government. Their arrival is anticipated, but hopes of them generating these changes are slowly dashed over time. While the individuals change, the structuring of politics remains the same.”

“Too much hope is invested in the idea that the next government will be replete with reformers and will offer a window of opportunity to bring about changes considered desirable. Simultaneously and paradoxically, too little time and effort is invested over the long-term in nurturing the network of informal and formal institutions and individuals that do want to solve collective action problems for the public good.”

Does PNG need a post-Bougainville Constitution?

 

Photo credit: Martyn Namorong

Will PNG break up in the event that Bougainville is granted full independence? For some PNG leaders the threat of balkanization has shaped their attitudes towards granting Bougainville independence. One such leader is Prime Minister James Marape who recently pleaded with Bougainville's leaders to take into consideration PNG’s fate when deliberating on the matter.

But asking Bougainville to empathize with PNG is a bit rich considering PNG has never really empathized with Bougainvilleans. PNG certainly didn't when they first demanded independence before PNG gained its independence and when they opposed the Panguna mine.

Instead of asking for Bougainvilleans to see things through a PNG lens, Prime Minister Marape should be preparing PNG to let go of Bougainville. Bougainvilleans have already made up their minds on full independence as expressed in the results of the referendum on whether or not they remain an integral part of PNG. PNG on the other hands needs a serious national consultation on it’s post Bougainville political architecture instead of toying around with whether or not it should be defined in it’s Constitution as a Christian nation.

At independence there was a recognition by the likes of PNG’s first Governor General Sir John Guise that the kind of centralized Westminster government PNG was borrowing from its colonial master would lead to separatist movements. The context of Sir John’s concern was that prior to independence there were already movements of political self-determination across the land.

The aspiration for self-determination is is as old as the independent Melanesian tribes that have for millennia defended their tribal lands from outsiders. It was against this cultural grain that a forced unification was imposed by the west. This has been perpetuated since 1975 by an elite whose minds have been successfully colonized. Colonization in PNG has a black face.

But a tendency for self-determination need not necessarily mean balkanization is inevitable. After all, Bougainville was initially amenable to being part of PNG at independence in 1975 and dropped its ambitions for independence. The Bougainvilleans would however be disappointed by a neocolonial government in Waigani and its instruments of suppression inherited from the colonial administration. Attempts to accommodate Bougainvillean aspirations within the nation-state model borrowed from the west led to a civil war and remains a source of discontent nationwide with calls for autonomy.

The English language is not the native tongue of Papua New Guineans. Translating their self-determination aspirations inevitably involves losing some of the nuances of the political, social and economic autonomy control they wish to have. We have seen this from  the Bougainville experience where the west-minster model of the nation state has proven itself to be incapable of accommodating the political aspirations of the people of Bougainville. Even after Bougainvilleans were granted greater autonomy than most other autonomous regions globally, they chose independence. This reflected their bitter experience where Waigani continued to deny them much needed development funding and stifle their progress.

The Melanesian world has for millennia been a multi-polar world with no strong political center or hegemony. The colonial powers imposed their nation-building historical tradition through a newly educated elite of PNG. They hoped the elite would administer a regime that would create a western-styled homogenous national identity under central control. Such an animal is not necessarily evil however the PNG experience has shown that it is flawed as it can easily be hijacked by a rent-seeking predatory elite.

Thus the accumulation of power and resources at the center of power has had little trickle-down effect on the periphery. In natural resource law, many Papua New Guineans feel cheated by a system that enables itself to own and decide on the exploitation of oil, gas and minerals under tribal lands. Year after year subnational administrations wait like beggars for Waigani to release warrants for their development activities. Political leaders proud of their people’s mandate have become yoyos jumping into different political camps hoping to grab some crumbs  for their people. People who were once warriors have become worriers and by-standers in their own land.

 Bougainvilleans clearly do not want to be part of this failed project and are intent on bailing out. Through their natural resource law they have demonstrated that the people should always be the center of power and not the central government. Waigani needs to catch up to this reality instead of looking for band-aid solutions towards maintaining central control through the nation state.

A second Constitutional Planning Committee is needed to seek out opinions of the people of PNG as to the type of system of government that is more relevant to them. PNG needs a new Constitution and a new political architecture to accommodate the different interest groups in this land post Bougainville’s inevitable exit. The current centralized system has been rightfully acknowledged by many leaders including the Prime Minister to be unable to withstand pressures from separatists especially when institutions of the state are weak.

PNG is a plurinational state that has been pretending to be a nation state for over 40 years. Instead of obsessing over whether PNG’s constitution defines it as a Christian country we should be exploring models of government that may be more relevant to PNG. 

Should PNG be redefined from being the Independent State of Papua New Guinea to becoming the Plurinational State of Papua New Guinea? PNG needs a new Constitution that recognizes the different tribal nations and empowers them with their full rights to self-determination within a political union.