Environment of Papua New Guinea - Politics

Politics

Papua New Guinea is a Commonwealth realm, with Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II reigning as its Sovereign and Head of State. It was expected by the constitutional convention, which prepared the draft constitution, and by Australia, the outgoing metropolitan power, that Papua New Guinea would choose not to retain its link with the Commonwealth monarchy. The founders, however, considered that imperial honours had a cachet that the newly independent state would not be able to confer with a purely indigenous honours system, so the monarchy was retained. The Queen is represented by the Governor-General of Papua New Guinea, currently Michael Ogio. Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands are unusual among Commonwealth realms in that Governors-General are selected by the legislature rather than by the executive branch.

Actual executive power lies with the Prime Minister, who heads the cabinet of 31 MPs from the ruling Coalition, which make up the government. The current Prime Minister is Peter O'Neil. The unicameral National Parliament has 111 seats, of which 22 are occupied by the governors of the 21 provinces (2 new ones were approved by Parliament in 2012 and the National Capital District (NCD). Candidates for members of parliament are voted upon when the prime minister asks the Governor-General to call a national election, a maximum of five years after the previous national election.

In the early years of independence, the instability of the party system led to frequent votes of no confidence in Parliament with resulting changes of the government of the day, but with referral to the electorate, through national elections only occurring every five years. In recent years, successive governments have passed legislation preventing such votes sooner than 18 months after a national election and within 12 month of the next election, and in December 2012 the first 2 (of 3) readings were passed to prevent votes of no confidence occurring within the first 30 months. (This restriction on votes of no confidence has arguably resulted in greater stability, although perhaps at a cost of reducing the accountability of the executive branch of government.

Elections in PNG attract large numbers of candidates. After independence in 1975, members were elected by the first past the post system, with winners frequently gaining less than 15% of the vote. Electoral reforms in 2001 introduced the Limited Preferential Vote system (LPV), a version of the Alternative Vote. The 2007 general election was the first to be conducted using LPV.

In foreign policy, Papua New Guinea is a member of the Pacific Islands Forum and the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) of countries and was accorded Observer status within ASEAN in 1976, followed later by Special Observer status in 1981. It is also a member of APEC and an ACP country, associated with the European Union

Since Aug-2011, there was a political crisis between the parliament-elect Prime Minister, Peter O'Neill (voted into office by a large majority of MPs) and Sir Michael Somare, who was deemed by the Supreme Court (in a December Opinion, 3:2) to retain office. The stand-off between Parliament and the Supreme Court continued until the July 2012 National Elections, with legislation passed effectively removing the Chief Justice and subjecting the Supreme Court members to greater control by the Legislature, as well as a series of other laws passed, for example limiting the age for a Prime Minister. The confrontation reached a peak, with the Deputy Prime Minister entering the Supreme Court, during a hearing, escorted by some police, ostensibly to 'arrest' the Chief Justice. There was strong pressure amongst some MPs to defer the National Elections for a further six months-1 year, although their powers to do that were highly questionable. The Parliament-elect 'Prime Minister' and other cooler-headed MPs carried the votes for the writs for the new Election to be issued, slightly late, but for the Election itself to occur on time, thereby avoiding a continuation of the Constitutional Crisis. The crisis was tense at times, but largely restricted to the political and legal fraternity, plus some police factions, but the public and public service (including most police and military) standing back. It was a period when, with increased telecommunication access and use of social media (notably Facebook and mobile phones) the public and students played some part in helping maintain restraint and demanding the leadership to adhere to Constitutional processes and not to defer the Elections and the people's say in who should be their legitimate representatives for the next five years.

Under an Amendment of 2002 the leader of the party winning the largest number of seats in the Election is invited by the Governor-General to form the Government, if he can muster the necessary majority in Parliament. The process of forming such a coalition in PNG, where there is little ideologically binding parties together, involves considerable horsetrading right up until the last moment. Peter O'Neil emerged Papua New Guinea's Prime Minister after the July 2012 Election, and formed a Government with the former Governor of East New Britain Province, Leon Dion as Deputy Prime Minister.