Peter Niesi
Political sparks are flying over Papua New Guinea’s Prime Minister Sir Michael Somare’s moves to introduce three nominated women members into the nation’s Parliament.
Simplistically, it looks as if the Opposition with Sir Mekere Morauta at the helm, are opposing women’s presence in this male-dominated supreme law making democratic institution of the land.
But if the 21-member Opposition is seen to be gender insensitive, Somare’s 88-member government coalition would have to be insensitive in political timing in addressing this long overdue representational anomaly.
In February, what is known as the 18-month grace period for the Prime Minister’s National Alliance-led coalition government in office ended. This meant that when Parliament resumed in March, it became possible to challenge Somare’s leadership under Section 145 of PNG’s Constitution through a vote-of-no confidence.
Numbers, alignments and leanings of individual MPs, political parties and nuances of these become a very newsy event, nerves are high-strung and suspicions become the order of the day.
In this weather, sole woman MP and Minister for Community Development Dame Carol Kidu, in a National Executive Council-endorsed process, has been championing moves for months to ensure a fair, transparent way:
• for potential women MPs to apply;
• have an independent human resource company in Vanguard sort the applications;
• have a screening team chaired by United Nations Resident Representative Dr Jacqueline Badcock shortlist six potential candidates; and
• The Prime Minister and Leader of Opposition would then finalise the three names to be tabled for MPs to endorse.
Stress on the process began to show early in January when Leader of Opposition and Deputy Leader Bart Philemon briefed Dame Kidu on their emerging position which hit a brick wall.
Morauta and Philemon, speaking for the Opposition, had asked Dame Kidu to set aside the process temporarily and instead table constitutional amendments to create 20 seats for women candidates to contest the elections beginning in 2012.
They were committed to support the government on this and then support the current process to have three women nominated and elected by parliament as an interim measure.
Kidu, who had seen no opposition along the way on the NEC-endorsed process and the presence of an Opposition official following a letter of invitation, was incensed at what looked like an 11th-hour Opposition change of heart.
Morauta said a letter seeking explanations on the process remained unanswered.
The truth is down-trodden and smudged somewhere in this but the divergent paths began following this meeting.
On March 10, Somare in tabling the bill told Parliament that the constitution did not prescribe a process to select the three nominees to be put to them for a two-thirds majority vote (73 MPs).
“This leaves the process open. To fill the gap, the NEC endorsed a process conducted in a manner which is both transparent and fair,” Somare said.
The grand old man of PNG politics made an impassioned plea that “for too long women had been absent from the political life of the nation”.
“I have taken the time today to reassure every member of this House that the use of the power in Sections 101 and 102 to appoint three women members has the highest legal and moral legitimacy,” the Prime Minister said.
“Women are an inseparable part of community life and our family life. They share our lives as mothers, wives, daughters, nieces and friends,” he added.
“Community life would be unthinkable without them.”
Morauta took the floor and supported the need for women MPs but stressed that this must be through an elective and legal process.
“There is simply no law which establishes the process to be followed to invoke Section 101 and 102. In the absence of such a law, the process is subject to legal challenge not only by anyone of the 93 unsuccessful applicants but by any aggrieved citizen.”
He added that there was nothing in the constitution to limit Section 101 and 102 specifically to women to be nominated.
The Opposition predictably registered a 17 MPs vote against the bill. But it was the government, with its potential 88-strong members, who failed themselves with 27 MPs absent.
Western Provincial Governor Dr Bob Danaya may have echoed some of their sentiments (and reasons for absence) when he said he could not vote for the bill because he had no biodata or names of any of them except Mary Toliman.
(It has since surfaced through news reports that the other two women are former Morobe Premier Ennie Moaitz and former National Council of Women president Susan Setae).
Leader of Government Business Patrick Pruaitch quickly moved for this first embarrassing vote of 60:17 to be rescinded, clearing the slate for a new first vote later.
But sparks overflowed into daily newspapers with full-page advertisements for and against the bill, news articles and broadcasts and even meetings between women groups which aside from the process focussed on who the three women are and why this had not been made public—especially to MPs before the vote.
On Thursday, the clashes continued when cabinet ministers attempted to quench questions by Philemon on whether the government had any yardstick to measure how some K40 billion spent between 2003-2008 translated into addressing PNG’s poor social indicators with high infant and maternal mortality rates, high under five mortality rates and equally dire educational statistics.
Prime Minister Somare hit back with references of funding of projects for Philemon’s Lae District, and reminded the Deputy Leader that he had served as Treasurer for four years in the last Parliament with him.
Kidu, still seething from the lack of Opposition support , joined the mêlée accusing Philemon of using social indicators merely for political point-scoring.
If MPs really wanted social indicators to change, she said, they should vote to bring more women MPs into Parliament.
When she tried to use Parliamentary Standing Orders on “personal explanations” to take exception to a newspaper reference attributed to trade unions describing the process she led as “sloppy”, it was Philemon’s turn to hit back using points of order which led to each referring to each other as “emotional”, causing an uproar in the House.
The bill is likely to be tabled for a first vote again but the clash seemingly zapped the MPs’ energy resulting in near unanimous successful first votes for two additional provinces and sweeping amendments to the laws governing the operation of the nation’s watchdog, the Ombudsman Commission of Papua New Guinea.