Election Delay not good for PNG

THERE might be a good reason for delaying the elections but at what cost?
The Mama Lo stipulates that new writs shall be issued no later than the fifth anniversary of the return of writs guaranteeing that national elections shall run every five years.
PNG has been one of a group of friendly nations who tried first to cajole and are now increasingly growing frustrated at Pacific neighbour Fiji’s reluctance
to hold its promised elections.
Many Papua New Gui­neans will incur those kinds of sentiments from friendly countries if it now pushes to defer its general election.
If the common roll is said to be not ready or is not properly done, the question that immediately comes to mind is: What has the Papua New Guinea Electoral Commission been doing in the past five years?
And the corollary to that question is this one: Why has the government not resourced the PNGEC well over the last five years to be able to compile the electoral roll properly?
Elections come around every five years. PNG has had six elections since Independence and is facing its seventh.
At each election the biggest complaint that has arisen is the poor compilation of the common roll.
The parallel is not lost between the national census which the prime minister declared as a lost and wasted cause last week  and the current discussion
on the preparation for
the general election.
The national census is run every 10 years. One would have thought that after a decade, institutions and individuals charged with running the census would be primed and ready.
They appear not to have been.
We sense, from the cacophony of opposing voices to the electoral commissioner’s assurance that everything is alright, that the PNGEC has done little preparation over the years.
Right after the 2007 general election, the eminent observers of the election from the Commonwealth Secretariat produced a report
that spelled out the integrity of the common roll as a problem area that needed urgent addressing. Why wasn’t it addressed, you wonder?
Surely, after seven general elections there must be – in parliament and the Papua New Guinea Electoral Commission – sufficient experience to be able to plan better for the next election in terms of resourcing the electoral commission well ahead of the next elections and in the PNGEC adopting strategies that will ensure the next common roll compilation is far better than the preceding one.
Unfortunately we do not seem to see this natural logical progression happening. If anything we seem to see the opposite happening – that each election produces far greater discrepancies in the common roll.
The general election, it goes without saying, is
the heart and soul of
democratic governance.
It is that event when the people finally get to have a say in who will represent them in parliament and in government.
Since six million people cannot go to parliament or run executive government, they make a choice of the best men or women to re­present them, to become their voice and their eyes and ears in law or policy making or ensuring that goods and services are equitably distributed and make dead certain that government runs as it should – in the name and interest of the majority of the people.
The census has failed, it is apparent.
If the election is deferred because of a failed process such as preparation of the common roll then there is really nothing that PNG can proudly hold up to the world as a measure of good democratic governance.
They would become evidence that governance is failing and become knives that those not so friendly with PNG can twist in our sides to argue for trade sanctions or whatever else they deem desirable to return PNG to good governance.
That this is happening at a time when the economy is flourishing, when the resources sector is growing in leaps and bounds, is also indicative that PNG is not in charge of its destiny, that there are other outside forces at work that mostly drive the positive indicators in this country.
It is a sobering thought and one that all ought to
sit up and take notice of instead of becoming terribly defensive as we are certain the thoughts contained here will evoke in government circles.