Amend OLIPAC to enter women as MPs

YOUR editorial “Not good enough” (Nov 21) highlighted perceived weaknesses in Dr Puka Temu’s proposal for the appointment of four women into Parliament as nominated Members.
The belief is that it is a mere token where women nominated MPs would still fail to “radically change the direction of Parliament”.
As there is no precedence, how can one tell whether this latest initiative will not empower women to project developmental issues on the floor of Parliament?
We don’t even know the scope of the powers, functions and responsibilities of these envisaged nominated MPs and therefore, shouldn’t put any performance rating to the idea as yet.
As to your questioning the effectiveness or otherwise of women political representatives, the events of the last two months should be an indicator.
If one woman MP (with the help of concerned citizens) was able to raise the issue of violence against women in a male-dominated Parliament, imagine the effect five women can have in Parliament.
Society has changed and issues affecting women are gaining greater emphasis in the international and domestic arena.
The proposal is one way of using an existing provision of the Constitution at our disposal to realise our obligations to gender equity and for the sake of developmental issues affecting women to be projected onto the highest decision-making arena in PNG.
We can either use it in a practical sense or just leave it as one of the many “window dressers” in our Constitution.
In August 2004, a similar submission by Dame Carol Kidu was brought before the National Executive Council (NEC).
It similarly sought to invoke section 102 of the National Constitution to have two “nominated Members” in Parliament. This was approved “in principle” by the NEC.
The last we heard was that NEC was still awaiting further advice from the Attorney-General. It shows that there is institutionalised political indecisiveness towards such initiatives.
It is ludicrous to suggest 20 reserved seats for women candidates where preferably women voters alone would vote for a woman candidate.
This was perceived as necessary to prevent women being entangled in the-all-too familiar rigorous party competitions that typifies the electoral processes of this country.
Such a proposal would also need to get past the currently male dominated Parliament and require significant constitutional changes to electoral laws, the OLPG&LLG, provisions to the electoral boundaries, and the added responsibilities of the Electoral Commission or Ombudsman Commission.
Though there are some intelligent MPs in this current Parliament who can support this institutional reform, a significant proportion seemingly fall under the politically insecure category.
Predictably, this latter category stand to frustrate any meaningful debate on the 20 reserved seat agenda.
They would have more to lose if put “toe to toe” with fellow women political leaders.
The political culture too can work against the 20-seat agenda. Questions may be asked about the legitimacy of 20 women “provincial” governors, if women voters are only allowed to vote for these MPs.
As if to back that conventional argument, the Speaker of Parliament said women should earn the right to enter Parliament, presumably through elections.
In theory, that is attainable. However, the electoral process and political culture of PNG negates against this process.
What we can possibly do in this instant is to make amendments in the Organic Law on the Integrity of Political Parties and Candidates (OLIPPAC) for political parties to have quota for women candidates, in addition to the financial incentives that are provided for in section 62 of the OLIPPAC.
Political parties should be required by law to put up a mandatory number of women candidates in proportion to the number of electorate the parties are contesting for.

P. Kaiku
Port Moresby