By CLIFFORD FAIPARIK
Allowing the people to vote the Prime Minister of PNG could lead to an increase in corruption and nepotism in the Government system, according to University of PNG Academic Patrick Kaiku
Kaiku believes that the region with the largest population would determine the voting for the Prime Minister leading to the implementation of projects in that region and favoritism towards people from that region in government appointments .
“It will lead to more nepotism and with people from that region dominating Departmental while projects will be concentrated in that one region where the Prime Minister is from and it will be expensive for PM candidates to move around the country.
“That will open up gates for corruption as business house will fund candidates and will get project if candidate win. External influence from foreigners just like what has happened in the US President elections will happen here as well. So for now the system is good as parliaments is holding the PM accountable .And if PM is voted directly by the people ,than the MPs will have no power in the parliamentary . And they can be seen as irrelevant. And who will hold the PM accountable. How will people hold him accountable? Will other institution be created to hold him accountable? Also we have a week Political Party system.”
Mr Kaiku said Prime Minister James Marape is proposing that “laws governing the election of prime minister in PNG be changed to allow people to vote for prime ministers”. Marape justified this on the grounds that, with “the current legislation, it is hard to fully serve the country”. If it ever becomes a reality, eligible PNG voters will directly vote for the Prime Minister of the country. Whatever procedural sequence this takes is still not known. In PNG, there are two scenarios for the election of a prime minister. Elected Members of Parliament (MPs), as provided in s. 142 (2) and (3) in the Constitution, during the first sitting of a new term of Parliament nominate and vote the prime minister. The other scenario happens in a vote of no confidence (s.145 of the Constitution). In both instances, Parliament votes the prime minister. To allow for a popular vote of the prime minister, the rationale for a reform exercise of this scale should be based on a compelling case as to its necessity. Reforms of this sort must be considered on the basis of whether they will address a clear and pressing deficiency. A pertinent question is: what is the problem with how the prime minister is elected presently? Lessons from PNG’s experience with political reforms can be informative”.
“The late Sir Mekere Morauta – considered the most successful reformer-prime minister in the history of the country, was able to initiate, for instance, changes to the voting system (from first-past-the-post or FPTP, to the Limited Preferential Voting system) because of very problematic developments in PNG’s governance. Under the FPTP, the groundswell of evidence demonstrated that MPs increasingly weren’t being voted into Parliament by the majority of their voters, scraping through in most instances with very slim margins in the total votes in their electorates”.
