Papua New Guinea in 2022: Key issues and future challenges

28 June 2022

Three key issues will dominate Papua New Guinea’s (PNG) political landscape this year and beyond. These include the national general election, Bougainville’s political future, and PNG’s approach to the current geopolitical competition in the Pacific. Depending on the national general election’s (NGE) results and who occupies the prime minister’s seat, the two latter issues may have varying outcomes.

The 2022 PNG national general election at a glance

The PNG government-issued election writs for its 11th NGE on 12 May 2022. Sadly, the country lost its deputy prime minister in a fatal car accident the day before, which resulted in the deferral of nominations by a week. Papua New Guineans will go to the polls on 2 July 2022. All writs must be returned by 29 July 2022, and then a new government can be formed. Papua New Guinea is a multi-party state with an unstable political environment. Party politics in PNG do not fit into obvious ideological cleavages as would be the case in established democracies with clear ideological divides. Party members and voters do not work across party lines, but on personality and patronage, making politics and party policies appear mostly non-programmatic. Election and security officials have been targets of violence since 1977. The level of election violence, electoral fraud, and voter frustration continue to increase in every election cycle, and this year may be even worse. Voter frustration explains why incumbent turnover rates are high, averaging around 55 per cent since 1977. Many voters might not vote in this election due to the poor handling of the electoral roll.

The challenge for the incoming government will be to continue upholding PNG’s foreign policy practice of ‘friends to all, enemies to none’ while not destabilising existing bilateral arrangements the country has with its regional partners, including its closest and long-time partner, Australia.

In this year’s election, 53 political parties are registered and a total of 3,493 candidates have been nominated to contest. Of the 53 registered political parties, we can expect that less than half will survive the next term of parliament, owing largely to parliamentary fragmentation and weak membership bases. Female political representation also continues to be a challenge in this patriarchal society. Following the election, a new government will be formed, and it will have a whole host of domestic and regional issues to contend with. Two key issues that will significantly shape PNG’s political, strategic, and economic environment are Bougainville’s political future and regional geopolitics. The outcome of this election will be crucial in deciding whether there will be continuity or change in some of the commitments made by the outgoing administration. The outgoing Prime Minister James Marape and his Pangu Party might return to form the next government, but the People’s National Congress Party led by former Prime Minister Peter O’Neill has also been campaigning intensely.

Bougainville’s political future after the elections

It is not clear which political parties will lobby for Bougainville’s future once invited to form a government. However, what is crucial now is whether the new government will prioritise Bougainville’s political future. Bougainville was a significant part of PNG until November 2019, when Bougainvilleans chose between ‘greater autonomy’ and ‘independence’. They chose the latter, with 97.7 per cent voting for political independence. This overwhelming result was perhaps an expression of Bougainville’s desire for statehood, and to compensate for the blood, sweat, and tears lost during the decade-long Bougainville conflict. A historic moment for the Bougainvilleans, their secession has already triggered calls for autonomy by other PNG provinces. Prime Minister Marape fears that Bougainville’s independence could provide a precedent for other parts of PNG to secede, leading to the dissolution of PNG. Moreover, Bougainville is a resource-rich province, and its secession would lead PNG to potentially lose essential revenue streams.

However, the Autonomous Bougainville Government (ABG) now faces the challenge of reaching a negotiated outcome with the PNG government. The PNG and ABG governments have identified three negotiation processes to achieve Bougainville’s political future including intergovernmental consultations, constitutional settlement of differences, and the ratification of the 2019 Referendum results by the PNG parliament. The outcome will depend largely on who the next prime minister will be, although legislation, agreements and processes guiding negotiations are already in place. The outgoing Marape administration has been committed to the referendum process and on 22 April 2022 concluded the Era Kone Covenant with the ABG government. This is an important covenant, which will ratify the 2019 referendum results not before 2025, but no later than 2027. However, there is a caveat that further protraction of the process or failure by the PNG government to uphold its end of the bargain may potentially lead to hostility between the two governments. For the Bougainvilleans and their new president, anything short of political independence would be dishonourable to the many lives that were lost during the decade-long Bougainville conflict. The general consensus among Bougainvilleans is that they have come far as a people since the 2001 peace agreement and that they would not risk going back.

PNG’s approach to regional geopolitics

Besides dealing with Bougainville’s political future, the next government will also have to come up with a set of consistent and predictable foreign policy options and choices regarding PNG’s regional diplomacy. Currently, PNG does not have a comprehensive foreign policy or a foreign policy white paper. Since 1975, it has pursued loose foreign policy orientations guided by the ‘friends to all, enemies to none’ approach, first enunciated by the country’s founding prime minister, the late Sir Michael Somare. This position has remained unchanged over the decades, including regarding ongoing geopolitical tensions in the Pacific. Recently, several Pacific Island nations became the subject of the Chinese foreign minister’s visit on the back of a controversial security deal inked between the Solomon Islands and China. This ‘secret security deal’ aroused Australia’s concerns about the Chinese military build-up in the region. While Australia accused China of interference, Beijing saw its presence as a mere gesture of goodwill. In response to the Chinese foreign minister’s visit, Prime Minister Marape emphasised that PNG will remain open to its external partners regardless of geopolitical differences, or ideological divides. When addressing the media in Port Moresby, Marape made it very clear that any partnership PNG enters into will be guided by the 1975 foreign policy approach. For PNG, the core focus will be on the economic aspects of bilateral relationships, and less on the political.

Within the current context of geostrategic competition and regional power play, Marape added that PNG will remain an equal playing field to all regional actors. On matters of national security, PNG’s foreign affairs minister reiterated that the country would continue to observe the Rarotonga Treaty of 1985 while discussing security deals with bilateral partners through consensus and mutual respect for sovereignty. Interestingly, Marape did not mention the climate emergency after his discussion with the Chinese foreign minister during the media briefing in Port Moresby. This is surprising, considering that PNG is a key member of the Coalition for Rainforest Nations. Given climate emergencies in the Pacific, PNG should naturally be taking the box seat. It is also interesting to note that China is backing away from its commitments on emissions reductions by firing up new coal-fired power plants at an alarming rate. Whether this was an oversight or lack of enthusiasm from the PNG government, or perhaps because the climate emergency was not discussed by China’s foreign minister and Prime Minister Marape, Australia’s incoming Labour government seems keen to fill the void by taking climate emergency as one of its core foreign policy goals towards the Pacific community.

Potential remedies to prevailing challenges

The slogan of a free, fair, and just election will be just that — a slogan — if the PNG government is not pragmatic in addressing some of the recurring issues related to election violence and fraud. Preparations for election logistics, security, and electoral roll updates for the next election in 2027 must start now, and not a year or eight months prior. And these preparations must be guided by recommendations from academics, researchers and non-partisan observer groups. Bougainville’s political status is a delicate one, and if not negotiated well might have severe consequences. To avoid a potential backlash, it will be incumbent on the next government to negotiate Bougainville’s future based on existing legislation, agreements, and processes. Any new attempt to engineer the process may carry consequences.

PNG also needs a predictable and consistent foreign policy. The challenge for the incoming government will be to continue upholding PNG’s foreign policy practice of ‘friends to all, enemies to none’ while not destabilising existing bilateral arrangements the country has with its regional partners, including its closest and long-time partner, Australia. Climate emergency is an existential threat to the Pacific community and apart from Australia, PNG should be leading from the front in addressing it.

DISCLAIMER: All views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent that of the 9DASHLINE.com platform.

Author biography

Teddy Winn has taught political science at the University of Papua New Guinea. Presently, he is an Australian Awards scholar undertaking PhD studies at James Cook University, Australia. His research interests are corruption and governance, patron-client politics, development politics, political anthropology, and regional security. Image credit: Flickr/Contando Estrelas.