| Cover Story/ PNG: GIVING POWER TO THE PEOPLE |
That’s Somare’s AIM for the next 5 years
Oseah Philemon
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Your signatures, Sir... Sir Michael Somare at the swearing-in ceremony. On the right is Governor-General Sir Paulias Matane.
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Papua New Guinea Prime Minister Grand Chief Sir Michael Somare has been swept back to power for a second five-year term.
And he has promised to repair transport infrastructure, improve delivery of health, education and other essential services to the people, as well as ensure they have money in their own pockets.
It has been a cry of the people for many years with the great majority not being able to earn enough cash to help their families survive in this harsh economic times.
Many children are being turned away from schools because their parents cannot find money for their school fees, mothers are dying during child births and infants dying either at birth or before they even reach five years.
Many people are also dying from preventable diseases in the rural and remote parts of the country because of lack of medicine or doctors.
These are some of the challenges the people are looking to the ‘Father of the Nation’ to solve before he retires from active politics.
Somare’s National Alliance and 12 minor political parties combined forces to put the “Father of the Nation” back in office with an overwhelming vote of 86 to 21.
The small ‘alternative’ government led by former Prime Minister Sir Julius Chan was drowned by the large number which stood with Somare to assure him of his last term in office before bowing out of politics in 2012.
Following his swearing-in at Government House by the Governor General Grand Chief Sir Paulias Matane, the Prime Minister returned to inform Parliament he will be fair to all members, both in Government and Opposition.
Somare will become the longest serving politician in the whole of the Commonwealth next year when he achieves 40 years in politics.
He first entered politics in 1968 and has been there since.
First tasks: One of his first tasks was to appoint a caretaker government to run the affairs of Papua New Guinea over the next few weeks while he sorts out his ministerial lineup from the 13 political parties in his camp.
The cabinet in the new Somare-led government is based on the Warangoi Agreement and the Warangoi Coalition Accord signed between the National Alliance and its coalition partners.
The 12 political parties that have signed up with the National Alliance Party are the People’s Action Party with the inclusion of the one-man party National Advance Party giving them seven MPs (7), Pangu Pati with Jamie Maxtone Graham’s Country Party (6), People’s Democratic Movement (5), Rural Development Party (4), People’s National Congress (4), United Resources Party (4), Melanesian Liberal Party (2), United Party (2), Melanesian Alliance (1), People’s First Party (1), PNG National Party (1), PNG Labour Party (1), PNG Conservative Party (1).
The caretaker government comprises 11 men—five are leaders from the National’s coalition partners and six from his ruling National Alliance (NA) Party.
Parliament has been adjourned to September 18 for the official opening.
Meanwhile, frosty relations between Canberra and Port Moresby are forecast to continue after the re-election of Somare for a second term in office, reported The Australian newspaper.
Australian foreign affairs minister, Alexander Downer was non-committal when asked how he felt about Somare’s re-election.
“That’s a matter for the people and parliament of Papua New Guinea,” Downer said. “It’s not our decision.”
Somare was invited by Matane to form a government when the National Alliance Party won the biggest number of seats in the polls—26 in the 109-seat Parliament.
Former Prime Minister Chan was backed in his leadership bid by former prime minister Sir Mekere Morauta and former treasurer Bart Philemon, both of whom are highly regarded by Australia for their economic and anti-corruption reforms.
Philemon was shouted down in parliament when he moved to adjourn the sitting pending the outcome of the Supreme Court applications lodged by Opposition MPs.
The applications questioned whether Somare had been duly elected as the National Alliance Party leader when he was invited to form a government.
Relations between Canberra and Port Moresby took a battering over the escape last year of Julian Moti from PNG on a military flight to the Solomon Islands, where Moti has since been appointed Attorney-General.
A suppressed PNG Defence Force report recommended that charges be laid against Somare for allegedly ordering the flight. Downer has called on Somare to publish the report.
“Obviously, we’ve been very unhappy with the flight of Julian Moti, who is a fugitive from Australia, from Papua New Guinea,” Downer said.
“We would have expected the PNG Government to have honoured the terms of the arrangements that we have with them. They didn’t and we’re pretty unhappy about that and we’ll remain unhappy about the Julian Moti Affair.”
Australian National University PNG expert Colin Filer said Somare’s election would not help improve PNG-Australia relations.
“We’ll see more of the pistols at 10 paces,” Dr Filer said.
An authority on PNG’s constitution, Tony Regan, said new PNG laws should lock in the support of coalition MPs for Somare. MPs would no longer be able to support parliamentary no-confidence motions in the prime minister, a major cause of past instability.
Somare has been rattled by the Howard Government’s criticism of illegal logging in PNG.
He recently acknowledged personal financial ties with the logging industry, which he had previously denied.
Somare has promised his government will ensure the people of Papua New Guinea play a more meaningful role in the nation’s economic development.
He announced that for the first time a government has returned to office with no overspending in an election year.
Somare said: “The people of Papua New Guinea should be proud that this government has not squandered government money as was the practice in previous election years.
“For the third consecutive year, we will be announcing another surplus in our budget. This is yet another milestone in our history as a developing nation.
Active participants: “Our economic performance as a government to-date raises questions about the lies that were told prior to this election by our opponents of corruption, mismanagement, and so forth.
“The results of the election are indicative of why the people of Papua New Guinea choose to return majority of the members from the National Alliance and its coalition parties.
“We have demonstrated that we have the interest of Papua New Guinea at heart and will continue to make legislative changes and policies to ensure that PNG in the coming five years reaches a level of economic independence that we all have been talking about for many years but have not been able to achieve.
“We will ensure on our terms that the people of Papua New Guinea become active participants in the continued growth and development of our economy.
“I believe this government today is in a real position to achieve this aim because through its initiative of the various district development programmes, social reforms and continued infrastructure maintenance and development will ensure the income generating capacity of ordinary Papua New Guineans will be vastly improved.
“We set the foundations over the last five years. We did the unimaginable. We turned the economy around while never borrowing a single toea.
“These next five years will be spent on building on the solid foundations we have already set,” said Somare.
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