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by Frank Senge Kolma
Election ’07 an impending disaster
PNG is heading straight into a
disaster of such massive proportions that bloodshed and outside
intervention is most probable.
The prelude to this chaotic scenario looms a mere six months away
and the meltdown begins in just 17 weeks.
If Australia has that extra battalion prepared for trouble in
supposed failed states in the region, it had better be put on red
alert in April when the electoral process begins for PNG’s seventh
post independence national general election.
This election is going to be total chaos from the polling booth to
the counting room.
When I look at it, it is almost as if some enemy of PNG has
deliberately and with such cunning manipulation has put this
country on the road to total collapse and set the coming election
as the plunger that will trigger anarchy.
This is not being alarmist or melodramatic. It is going to happen.
All the ingredients are there.
First, the limited preferential voting (LPV) system is little
understood outside the offices of the PNG Electoral Commission.
Confusion reigns beyond the borders of our towns, which are not
reached by the mass media.
That is 80% of the population, who have little or no understanding
of how the new electoral process is going to work.
Next, with mere weeks to go and in election year the preliminary
common rolls are not out for many electorates and provinces.
In many instances the common roll has cut out huge chunks of the
population. There just is no time to do a proper common roll
update in all provinces.
This is going to invite so much concern and contest going into and
after the elections.
The potential for violence at the polling areas is great.
Another glaring difficulty will be the recent changes by
Parliament, which include trimming the campaign period from 11
weeks to four weeks and in separating the pictures of candidates
and the ballot paper.
This adds further to the confusion.
Most remote and far flung electorates will not have the time to
scan their candidates properly because of the limited campaign
period.
The separate ballot papers and the requirement to write down the
numbers and names of candidates will stop the majority of the
voting population from actively voting and increase the chances of
cheating and manipulation a hundred-fold.
The process of voting itself is also going to be another
difficulty. Given the fact that the elections are going to be one
day affairs and with the difficulties presented by a poor common
roll, the LPV system and the separate ballot papers most of the
voting population will be kept from participating.
In many places people live too far from the polling booth and will
not get to the polling areas quickly enough.
Bad weather, difficult terrain, lack of transport infrastructure
and scarcity of available air transportation is going to make
dropping of polling teams and ballot papers difficult.
In many instances, most of the day designated for polling might be
wasted in both the voter and the polling officials getting to the
polling areas.
This will create a build up of frustration, tension and anger.
Has somebody given thought to what a tedious process actual voting
on election day and the mere act of writing candidate’s names
under the new arrangement?
Say 500 people were to vote in one polling area. That means they
have to write down the names of their three preferences so that at
the end of a day 1,500 names will have to be written. This is
going to take a lot of time.
If 500 people were to take only one minute to vote (that is too
fast), it will take eight hours (one day) to have all of them
vote. If the writing responsibility were to fall upon one or two
persons in a remote and among an illiterate population, there are
going to be some tired fingers at the end of one day.
Again chances for mistakes and cheating abound in such an
instance.
The sanctity of a private vote is going to have to go.
Most illiterate people will have to call out their choices and in
any case, somebody else is going to write their choices for them.
Finally, the counting room is going to be another scene of chaos.
If we go by the fact that in a well developed and accessible
electorate like the NCD it took two weeks to count the votes in
the recent Regional by-elections, think of the time it will take
when the Open seats votes are also in.
Think further of those provinces with many more electorates and
where accessibility is difficult.
Counting is going to stretch into months.
The chances for foul play increase the longer a seat is not
declared.
Finally, the law has set a certain date for the return of writs
and for the calling of the new Parliament.
If the counting stretches beyond those two dates and it is likely
to, a constitutional crisis is in the making.
Can such chaos be contained?
Hardly so. The security forces are going to be spread thinly on
the ground controlling elections in all the provinces.
If violence were to erupt in several locations at once, there is
not going to be any capacity to mobilise sufficient manpower to
contain those flare-ups quickly enough.
There is the likelihood that security forces might be divided in
loyalty as well to certain groups or individuals depending on how
well they are being looked after.
That will create its own problems and tensions between rival
groups. Greater discipline is required. Can the security forces
produce that discipline and resist pressure to stand by the
Constitution and the people they are sworn to protect?
This is going to be a big test.
What is most worrying is that everybody from our Parliamentarians
down appears to be so totally oblivious to that impending
disaster.
Only that one champion of little people everywhere, Morobe
Governor Luther Wenge, appears to have worked out the importance
and urgency of the event and has taken out a court order to throw
out the LPV system and associated processes.
All our hopes are going to be on Mr Wenge winning his case,
otherwise, the Prime Minister, the Opposition leader, the Speaker,
and the Chief Electoral Commissioner had better sit down and
strategise a way out of this dilemma for all of us.
Unless Parliament delays the implementation of the LPV or the new
amendments pertaining to voting to 2012, PNG is going to face its
biggest test as a democratic nation in the coming elections.
The chances for a successful elections are very slim and for a
failed election very high.
 
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