Elections & the Electoral Office

[aussie]

TODAY (Monday January 20), results of the weekend’s Motu-Koitabu elections in Port Moresby are being announced — and the nation now knows of the dates for the fresh Southern Highlands elections.

All this puts elections and the role of the Electoral Commission back under the public spotlight as the courts continue to hear disputes about the results of last year’s National Parliament and Local Government Elections.

In this article, acting Electoral Commissioner Andrew Trawen explains the importance of elections and the role of the independent Electoral Commission of Papua New Guinea:

EVERYBODY likes to vote for the best man or woman — and she or he is never a candidate.

That is an old joke about how most people always complain about everything and how a government or this and that leader is bad — then do not bother to vote in an election to change things.

The joke is true — and elections are not something to joke about.

The choice of the people through elections and the ballot box is the only legitimate or lawful foundation of any government, and to protect its free expression is the job of the Electoral Commission.

The most common way people give up their election power is by thinking they do not have any.

It is our job at the Electoral Commission to always remind our people about the importance of elections and the power of their vote — to do good, or do bad for our country with whoever they elect.

We go to elections to pick good lawmakers for our National Parliament or local government to choose what will happen to us in the future or change our destiny.

Whenever any form of government or an elected lawmaker becomes destructive to life, freedom and the search for happiness, it is the right of the people to change him or her or abolish that government — and to elect new lawmakers through the democratic process of elections to form a new, better government.

It is the Constitutional right of our people to elect who they want to establish what form of government they prefer, and change it as they please, the will or choice of the people — exercised through the ballot box — being the only thing important.

Good government must never be a substitute for government by the people themselves through democratically-held elections.

Never doubt the power of elections and how a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world through elections.

The 1968 General Election saw the first large group of our Founding Fathers elected to the old House of Assembly under the colonial Australian Administration.

The colonial Australian Administration did not think Papua New Guineans would be ready to be independent for another 100 years, to quote an Australian Minister responsible then for the Territory of Papua and New Guinea.

A few of this large group of our Founding Fathers elected in 1968 formed the original Pangu Pati after that year’s General Election — and started planning early Independence for our country.

The 1972 General Election decided the question of early Independence, despite a strong anti-Independence and anti-Pangu campaign by powerful, conservative Australian plantation owners in the country — supported at first by the colonial Australian Administration.

The will of our people was demonstrated through the ballot box.

All this is on record in old newspapers in the library of the Post-Courier, our country’s oldest newspaper, which still has copies of newspapers in Papua New Guinea that go back to as early as the 1920s.

The Mission of the Electoral Commission is to help the people of Papua New Guinea continue to have their say in who will govern our country, through elections.

We encourage our people to take part in elections to elect good lawmakers for the benefit of our children, grandchildren and descendants.

The Electoral Commission believes with the Free World that there is no safer place for the greatest power of society but in the people themselves.

If we think the people are not well-informed enough, the answer is not to take power from them, but to inform them by education.

So the Electoral Commission is setting up an Information and Community Liaison Unit with the help of the Australian Electoral Commission under an 8-year AusAID project to build up our Electoral Commission and strengthen democracy and free and fair elections in Papua New Guinea.

The Electoral Commissioner, Reuben Kaiulo, initiated this AusAID project immediately after the 1997 National Election to strengthen the democratic process of elections in Papua New Guinea.

Up to now, election community awareness efforts by the Electoral Commission are done in media advertising, marketing and news campaigns or programs at election time only.

Once the Electoral Commission Information and Community Liaison Unit is set up, our election awareness campaign will be a proper, unending yearly program — not just a one-off election-time project.

The Electoral Commission has not been able to set up an Information and Community Liaison Unit up to now because we do not have the expertise to do so and do not have the money to hire media consultants over a long period of time to help us do this.

Setting up our Information and Community Liaison Unit is an important milestone for the Electoral Commission because it is our job to continue to remind our people about the importance of free and fair elections — and the power of their single vote.

It is our job to tell our people that it is illegal and immoral to give up their vote for temporary favors of beer, food and money during elections.

We must not let 10 per cent of this country, the troublemakers, give the rest of us, the 90 per cent, a bad reputation. Elections must be free without threats and bloodshed.

It is our job to tell our people that the philosophy of elections is about electing good lawmakers who earn their lawful fortnightly pay honestly — and are unselfish, humble, and giving without expecting any special, personal favors or anything extra in return for what they are elected to do.

God Bless and Protect our country and all of us from badness.


ENDS/.

Tarcissius Bobola
media assistant
Office of the Electoral Commissioner