| Business |
Transparent corruption
FRIDAY again – and we note
further progress in the process of our country’s national
election.
Votes from our many electorate are being tallied in increasing
numbers as polling moves to its final stages.
In a matter of weeks, we will know the composition of the new
parliament and the identities of those who will lead Papua New
Guinea for the next five years.
Has this been a successful election?
Much depends on the yardstick used to determine success.
If comparison is the basis, and violence and crime the specifics
to be measured, then on balance Election 2007 has been no worse
than its immediate predecessors.
Some would argue it has been better. There appears to be a
consensus that limited preferential voting is a viable electoral
system for PNG.
That bodes well for the future.
There is no doubt that preferential voting is a far more accurate
way than the first past the post system of assessing the wishes of
the voters and providing them with parliamentary members
representative of their choice.
But great care will need to be taken to explain every step of the
way as the country moves gradually towards full preferential
voting.
No government since independence has made a concerted effort to
teach people how their country works.
Successive PNG administrations have expected their people to be
familiar with the intricacies of one of the world’s oldest systems
of elected government, one that has been in existence for three
quarters of a millennium.
But they make no attempt to give them the means to create that
familiarity.
Until an incoming government puts national political
education as one of its priorities, the role of Parliament will
remain obscure to the bulk of our people.
Worse, the obligations and responsibilities of members will
continue to be wildly misunderstood.
Much of our adopted system of government depends on trust and on
concepts of honesty and fair dealing. Until these precepts are
understood and put into practice by both the members and the
people, the performance of our governments and of individual
members will remain flawed.
We believe that the lack of a formal and ongoing campaign to
acquaint people with their rights and their responsibilities as
outlined in the Constitution and as determined by Parliament has
led directly to corruption.
And that is one aspect of this election that we find alarming.
If there was one word that was pre-eminent during the election
campaign, it was “corruption”. Scarcely a candidate failed to
sound the corruption conch shell or beat the dishonesty drum.
The newspapers were full of some of the most overwrought election
promises seen so far in PNG. And there was one unifying theme –
the fight against corruption.
Voters were exhorted to cast their ballot for candidates who were
allegedly incorruptible and who would carry the fight against
theft and white-collar crime and corruption to new heights.
But in the towns and cities and villages of PNG, the stark
contrast of the reality was stunning.
These very candidates were in the forefront of the vote-buying,
the bribery, the promises of advancement, the purchasing of clan
and tribal support – the whole sick structure of corruption that
threatens to bring PNG to its knees.
That is bad enough.
But worse is the reaction of ordinary people for whom bribery,
vote-selling and the chance to make a quick buck have turned our
national elections into a kind of black market festival.
So while the man in the street berates the politicians for their
corruption, their dishonesty, their lack of heart for the little
people and so on, he does not hesitate to accept a cash hand-out,
or a carton, or a couple of pigs if they’re offered by a political
hopeful or a sitting member.
Then, of course, that candidate is the best of the best, the man
who must be voted into Parliament. It seems to us that our
national elections have become the very focus of corruption and
that candidates and voters are equally responsible.
The gulf between what the public and our leaders claim to want and
the reality of what actually happens in our country, appears to be
widening daily.
 
|
