Lets exercise our rights the right way

Weekender

By DAVID FONZIE 
THE time has come for all citizens of PNG to go into elections and vote in new national leaders to lead this great country for the next five years.  This five-year cyclical event is significant because the kind of men and women we the ordinary citizens vote into Parliament will chart the path of development for us all in the next five years and beyond.
It’s us ordinary citizens who will make or break the journey of our country and it is us who will reap the harvest, come what may.
There are different types of leaders’ world over doing and leading people in many different scenes.  For example, the religious world have their own leaders and these people possess special leadership attributes and traits which enables them to function and lead their congregation.
The leaders in the religious world answer to the call of God to assume leadership roles.  Men and women who have the business acumen and wealth lead the business world.  In the village setting, chiefs assume the role of chieftaincy through hereditary and through other societal selection processes.  In the Westminster type of government, ordinary people are given the freedom to choose their national leaders through the ballot.  In this process, the people are at liberty to exercise their Right to choose their national leaders.  This significant event is a few weeks away from now for PNG.
In many democracies in the world, people vote their candidate through party lines.  People assess the party policies and cast their votes for candidates who contest under a certain party.  Others, however, cast their votes based on specific characteristics they look for in their candidate of choice.  These are the ways it is done world over, however in Papua New Guinea none of these are practiced.  The people of PNG have not graduated into this kind of thinking and voting practice yet.  We are still awakening from slumber.  We are in the embryonic stages of political assertiveness, yet to reach maturity.
Our thinking and decision making is still enveloped inside our cultural practice of ‘wantokism’, tribalism, bloodline etc, and this is the single most critical impediment in voting good leaders into Parliament.
Our people are facing huge dilemma.  They are in the midst of two opposing systems of choosing a leader; the imported Westminister system of free choice and the traditional system of following bloodlines.  We can’t blame our ordinary citizens.
Our people are reacting to what is ‘natural’.  So what have we as a government done to address this predicament?  The government over the many years since independence have not been thinking critically to clinically assess the current practices and develop some clear-cut doable strategic approaches to address this issue.
One clear strategy is for the government through various departments and agencies to communicate the Westminister type of democracy (voting through a secret ballot) to all people (school children, youth, adults, old people) through media and many different forums (community-talking, church gatherings, school curricula, etc.) over say twenty years.
Every development sector or partner (church, school, judiciary, Police, health, NGOs, etc.) should be mandated and empowered to deliver this awareness throughout the fabric of our society so that people are fully educated to make informed and right choices when choosing their leaders.
A few advertisements on newspapers, television and on radio running for a few days or weeks are trivial, ridiculous and reckless.  Simply nothing is achieved at all.  If anything, the message reaches only 10 percent of the total population of this country and all too important and scarce resources are wasted.
The biggest impediment for us all now is ‘the great wall of cultural protectionism’ which has become the dominant underlying factor in PNG politics. The cultural norm of belonging to a family unit, a tribe, a village, ethnicity etc. is deeply rooted and runs supreme when it comes to voting in elections.
This has to be broken down.  The government cannot do it at all but the people can.  And the best people who can strategically and cautiously do it are the younger educated men and women of today, particularly those in tertiary institutions and in different career settings.
We should not vote along tribal lines, ethnicity, religious groupings etc.  You the younger generation have a mammoth task to educate our village people and those squatting in the fringes of urban centres to vote freely and openly.  Current MPs and intending candidates will say, ‘the people from this area/tribe/ethnicity are my people only’.  ‘I don’t want anyone to move out of the group’.  Guards who at times armed to the teeth will be posted, as happened before, to fortify the self-proclaimed territory.  Intimidation, harassment, aggression and abuse will be the norm.  All these are undemocratic, unconstitutional and highhanded tactics which must be punishable by law.
However, the law enforcement agencies are weak and at times compromise due to inducements, therefore the onus is on the younger generation of today to fight everything that is wrong, including the unlawful actions of law enforcement agencies.
Now that the country is about to elect new leaders into Parliament, we as citizens of this great country need to seriously look at the kind of leaders we would like to vote into Parliament.
Thus, I now wish to share some thoughts to help you make that all too important decision.
We focus on the qualities or characteristics of what good political leaders should possess.  There are more but here a few characteristics of top performing leaders:
Honesty is one great attribute of a good leader.  Being honest is not easy and can sometimes be difficult because it makes individuals vulnerable but you can’t do away with it.  It reveals who someone is and discloses the mistakes, which gives others the opportunity to criticize or reject openly.  There is no point in voting for someone whom you know is profoundly dishonest in the conduct of his/her life.
Integrity is really critical for a good leader.  It is all about adhering to moral and ethical principles.  Integrity is really the soundness of one’s moral character.  This is a vital characteristic for all politicians world over.  Political leaders who possess integrity can be trusted because he or she never veers from inner values, even when it might benefit them to do so.  A leader must have the trust of followers.  This requires the highest standard of integrity.  Vote in those who uphold moral and ethical principles in our society.
Being compassionate to all.  It is the humane quality of understanding the suffering of others and wanting to do something to alleviate that suffering.  Good political leaders use compassion to see the needs of those he or she represent and to determine the course of action that would be of greatest benefit to all those involved.  Vote in someone who has the heart for the people and deliver tangible development in the electorate.
Fairness in decision making and the subsequent implementation to distribute goods and services equitably to the entire populous is resemblance of a good leader.  Fairness is all about making sound decisions and acting impartially and objectively.  Vote a leader who has the credential and stamina to distribute services equally throughout the electorate.
Confidence in oneself to lead everyone is a great attribute.  One must be confident to act in the right, proper or effective way to his/her people.  A good political leader needs to be both confident in himself or herself as well in their ability to lead.  Leaders who possess this quality inspire others, drawing on a level of trust which sparks the motivation to get others on board and get the job done.
Flexibility is yet another key attribute.  Not too often politicians in PNG will take criticisms.  They are uptight and roar like lions when they are caught in doing something wrong and are out in the spot-light.  Politicians or those aspiring to be one must understand the give-and-take aspects of politics, and the ability to find the common ground.  Flexibility allows political leaders to recognize setbacks and criticism, to learn from them and move forward.
Respect one-self and others. A current MP or an aspiring candidate must show high regard for himself/herself and others and resources (eg. people, money, reputation, safety) entrusted to him/her.  Perform your role as a leader in very transparent and honourable manner.  These means do only the rights and avoid doing the wrongs.  Knowingly doing and engaging in wrongful decisions and actions is clear resemblance of a very poor performing leader.
Intelligence.  The crop of leaders we now vote into the National Parliament this time around must be of the highest caliber who can think critically, anaylse issues intelligently, present cases logically and perform exceptionally well in all spheres of their engagements and work environment.  Our founding Parliamentarians performed absolutely well in the formative years and we take our hats off for them.
Their education level may have been low but their intelligence was sharp and matched those of others from Australia and elsewhere.
We now want people of higher intelligence who can rub shoulders with the Prime Ministers/Presidents, Ministers, bureaucrats of Australia, US, UK, Japan, Russia, France, China etc. to be voted into Parliament this time around and beyond.