Amend laws to get rid of inequalities

Letters

THE Government has so far passed eight new bills in Parliament, including the Oil & Gas Act Amendment Bill 2021 and MVIL Third-party Insurance Bill among others.
The decision to revert to the first-past-the-post voting system which was abolished in 2007 in preference for the limited preferential voting (LPV) system was voted against through a bipartisan support.
The LPV system was adopted because it minimised problems including vote rigging and other inequalities that were identified in elections prior to 2007.
The LPV system ensured that the elected MPs had wider mandate from the electorate and province by redistributing second and third preferences of losing candidates in each rounds to the leading candidates.
However, in a culturally diverse country such as Papua New Guinea, inequalities often exist regardless of the voting system and it’s often difficult for the election officers and security personnel’s to mitigate vote rigging and the disenfranchisement of different groups of voters.
One of the agenda to address inequalities in general elections in the country has been alluded to the reserve seats for women in Parliament.
This agenda was tabled in Parliament by Dame Carol Kidu in 2009 after her observations of the limited number of female candidates being elected into Parliament since 1975.
Despite the push to have reserve seats for women in Parliament, the Government saw that the move was untenable due to an absence of a supporting bureaucracy and the lack of financial capacity. Since then the agenda has become a trivial agenda but discussions are still continuing between different groups and the government to ensure that the agenda is brought to fruition.
At this juncture, the Government should also consider amending the Organic Law on Political Parties and Candidates (Olipac) to ensure that more female candidates are endorsed by the political parties as an alternative means to elect more female candidates into Parliament.
The Olipac has been recently amended to instil compliance, efficiency and transparency, however, the practice of electing more male candidates than females continue to be an issue with less women being elected into Parliament.
Hence, the Olipac should be amended to allow political parties to endorse equal number of male and female candidates with the result of increasing the probability of voting more female candidates into Parliament.
The Government has been passing bills in its endeavour to fulfill its “Take back PNG” slogan so importantly it should consider the protection and promotion of the rights of women in Parliament and elsewhere.

Mickey Haro