By GEORGINA MICHAEL
The Registrar of Political Parties, Emmanuel Pok, has announced that registration of new political parties will close within the next two months ahead of the 2027 National General Elections (NGE).
Speaking during the certification of the Nesenel Unity Party on Friday, 21 August, Mr Pok said the Office of the Registrar of Political Parties had enforced stricter compliance measures since 2022 to regulate the conduct of political parties, particularly their executives.
“We have discouraged citizens from registering new political parties because we already had 56 political parties contesting the 2022 elections, and that is a lot of political parties,” he said.
Mr Pok said while some parties performed well and remained active, others were formed shortly before elections and became inactive afterwards.
“Some political parties are wonderful political parties, whilst some political parties just register on the eve of the elections
and then die out after the elections. This kind of behaviour has given us the information that we now should strictly control the registration of political parties,” he said.
He said this pattern had been consistent since the establishment of the office.
“On average, we normally have 10 to 15 political parties register 10 to 12 months to six months before the elections. Right after the elections, political party activities do not exist in our democracy,” Mr Pok said.
He confirmed that PNG currently has 44 registered political parties, of which 23 have members in Parliament and 21 do not.
Mr Pok said the deadline for new registrations was approaching.
“The new registration of political parties will be stopped six months before the issue of writs. So I think we’ve got two months before new political parties are registered,” he said.
He clarified that the office would continue to process applications after the cutoff date, but parties registered after the deadline would not be eligible to contest the 2027 elections.
“After that, by law, we’re going to entertain registration of new political parties. The registration process will still be going on, but they will not participate in 2027,” he said.
Mr Pok said that since the 2022 elections, the office had encouraged citizens to join existing political parties rather than form new ones.
“We’ve asked them to go and join other political parties. So they’ve become stronger forces, and I think we’ve successfully achieved that. We haven’t received new registration of political parties, and we want to end it that way,” he said.
He said the policy did not infringe on citizens’ constitutional rights.
“But we don’t restrict your constitutional rights to form or join a political party or association,” Mr Pok said.