Towering above his rivals and contemporaries around the Pacific

Rowan Callick

Standing tall... Sir Michael Somare being sworn-in again as prime minister of Papua New Guinea.

For once, the meaning of a Papua New Guinea election, so often clouded, is clear: Sir Michael Somare has become the giant towering above not only his rivals through the country’s 32-year history, but also above his contemporaries around the Pacific.

The second great winner of the campaign is the election system itself, one of the great achievements of Sir Mekere Morauta as prime minister.

Under the limited preferential voting system that this time replaced first-past-the-post, tribal rivalries have been succeeded by alliances, and this poll was the calmest and best conducted for 15 years.

LONE WOMAN 

But there was no progress for women. Australian-born Dame Carol Kidu remains the only woman in parliament.

After Somare’s 40 years in parliament, his latter period of success—during which he has already led the country through its first full five-year term with a single government—is now starting to measure up to his early years when the party he then led, Pangu, steered PNG through independence and beyond.

He may be expected to play a more prominent role in the Pacific—where he formed a close relationship for many years with the late Fiji leader, Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara.

The islands are undergoing a fresh wave of difficulties and with Fiji, the usual hub of the region, driven by rivalry and under a democratic shadow until it can hold fresh elections, Somare may feel the time is ripe to step up to resume a more active position, as he feels Ratu Mara’s cloak falls on his shoulders.

People power... queuing for the ballot boxes.

There is no reason why he should not rule at home for a further five years, such is his grip on parliament. His own party, National Alliance, gained 26 seats in its own right and since then has attracted winners who stood as independents to go with the strength and sign up with the party too—so that it is now a third or more of the 109 MPs.

It will be virtually impossible to cobble together a coalition of the other fragmented parties—none with more than Morauta’s PNG Party’s eight members—to defeat Somare this term, now more than ever “the Chief” as he has long been dubbed.

He has said he will stand down fairly soon after the 18 months’ grace period free of parliamentary challenges granted by the constitution. But few politicians around the world, however brilliant during their careers, demonstrate that rare capacity to know when to walk away. If he can do this too, it will add one more win to his list. Somare is 71 and has during his career named and then frustrated numerous successors, including Paias Wingti, the Highlands leader, who lost his seat this time, and Tony Siaguru, whose death three years ago robbed the country of one of its wisest figures.

HEIR APPARENTS 

Most of the sidelined heir apparents have then sought to challenge him, and one or two—like Wingti—have come out on top for a while. But recently Somare has had the last word every time. He has not said so, but it would be no surprise if he did not hope ardently that his son Arthur, a minister in his last government—might succeed him. But such dynastic success may prove ultimately beyond even Somare’s political brilliance to achieve.

He was elected prime minister on August 13 by 86 votes to 21. If anything, that may be more than he might have liked because it means he has to find a way to satisfy the demands of a large, fragmented number of MPs within his coalition, who are members of 12 parties besides his own dominant National Alliance. He beat his former Finance Minister Sir Julius Chan, who was re-elected after ten years in the wilderness, joining his son Byron, to form the second father-and-son team in parliament. But Morauta was then chosen as leader of the opposition. He devised and steered through parliament two key constitutional changes of the last 25 years: requiring MPs to remain true to their parties and not sell their votes as before to the highest would-be prime ministerial bidder, and also shifting the voting to a preferential system.

Bart Philemon, who has joined the opposition, should also be viewed as a winner—because it was his term as Finance Minister, reinforced by his successor Sir Rabbie Namaliu, that stabilised the economy, ready for Somare to meet the big challenge of his new term: delivering services, creating a reliable infrastructure, and fostering private sector investment to create jobs.

Regional statesman... as chair of the Pacific Islands Forum, Sir Michael Somare is flanked by secretary-general Greg Urwin (left).

Foreign reserves have reached a record US$1.85 billion and the economy is expected to grow 4.5 percent in 2007—still low by developing country standards, but rather better than recent history. The Post-Courier newspaper editorialised about the aims for Somare’s new term: “Papua New Guineans want an improved standard of living. They want more money in their pockets so that they can meet the cost of education, health and the family household. In essence, people want financial independence. They don’t want handouts from the government or politicians. They want opportunities that will ensure they can earn their own living.”

To achieve this, Somare will have a team with only modest experience. Although the number of MPs who lost their seats was well down on the previous election’s 80, it still reached about half. And some of the most experienced members are in the opposition.

Former opposition leader, Southern Highlander Peter O’Neill, has taken his People’s National Congress into the government this time. Bire Kimisopa, who made such a strong impression as police minister, was defeated as were—on preferences, showing that voters are already sophisticated enough to know how to make use of the new system—Namaliu and Bougainvillean Sam Akoitai, who again was one of the leading achievers in the last cabinet as mining minister.

Chris Haiveta, a former Pangu leader, was also defeated. As usual, there were few if any discernible issues that decided voting nationwide. Local concerns and personalities dominated the polling. Madang province featured some particularly interesting results. Businessman Ken Fairweather defeated controversial former army commander Jerry Singirok for Sumkar; and James Yali, the son of a famous cargo cult leader, was re-elected for the Rai Coast, despite having started serving a 12-year sentence for rape.

Yali will lose his seat again unless he wins his rape appeal. And former Chief Justice Sir Arnold Amet won the Madang regional seat, defeating among others the controversial businessman Peter Yama. The Port Moresby regional seat and hence the governorship of the capital was won by Powes Parkop, best known as a lively legal campaigner for human rights and a former journalist.

BIG CHALLENGE 

He also faces a big challenge. As again the Post Courier editorialised: “Right now, Port Moresby looks more like a slum than a capital city.”

Besides Chan, other former MPs who made a successful come-back this election include former Speakers Timothy Bonga and John Pundari, Philemon Embel for Nipa-Kutubu, and Bougainvillean Michael Ogio.

Namaliu was defeated by Patrick Tammur, son of the MP he had defeated to win the seat back in 1982, the late Oscar Tammur. And Wingti, who shot to prominence straight from student politics, lost to student politician, Tom Olga.

Somare’s natural instinct to play a committed role in the Pacific is a straightforward one. More complicated is his fraught relationship with PNG’s big neighbour Australia, exacerbated by the way Julian Moti, an Australian lawyer who is now Attorney-General of Solomon Islands, is alleged to have escaped on a PNG military flight to Honiara last October while he faced child sex charges over alleged offences in Vanuatu. During the campaign and since, Somare made nationalistic domestic capital out of claims that Canberra had tried to interfere in the election process.

ELECTORAL TRIUMPH 

He is strong enough now, not just politically, but increasingly also economically, simply to continue the stand-off. But at some stage, a rapprochement will be needed if PNG is to benefit fully from the increased aid and other forms of support available from Australia, especially the economic reform expertise. Despite the natural appeal of nationalistically standing up to the former coloniser, the relationship will be normalised—but now, not probably until after the Australian election, towards the end of this year.

In the wake of the electoral triumph, Somare and his new colleagues may review a rare, recent long article in The Economist magazine about PNG. It acts like a cold shower. It notes that when Somare took PNG to independence in 1975, the country was about 1.6 times better off measured by gross domestic product per head than its neighbours in developing Asia.

“But as theirs grew sharply, PNG’s stagnated on a combination of weak economic growth and a rapidly rising population. Manufacturing and service industries remain stunted,” leaving the country heavily reliant on mining and plantations. Little of the wealth from these trickles down to ordinary people.”

The Economist says: “PNG has the land and climate, and its people the horticultural skills, to greatly boost its agricultural output.

“With its pristine beaches and jungles, it could be a tourist destination to rival Bali. The high crime rate is a big deterrent to both. However, an even bigger disincentive to all types of economic development is that everything in PNG is too expensive, does not work, or suffers both these flaws. Electricity, telephone and internet services, in particular, suffer regular outages. The government continues to own and mismanage utilities that would be better off privately.”

If the Chief can cajole his team and lead by example to meet even a few of these challenges, his position in history will be assured even more firmly than by his electoral victories.