Limit number of consecutive terms

THE General Election 2022 is not getting any better, its getting worse.
In past elections, international observers made numerous recommendations for improvement, but the outcome in all elections demonstrates that these recommendations are collecting dust on the shelves of Waigani.
The Electoral Office and the Government of the day are accountable for not fulfilling their constitutional duty which has deprived its citizens’ democratic rights to elect their representatives.
These recommendations are fundamental for improvement and should have been addressed from day one.
If this had happened, it would have not lead GE22 to become the catalyst for breaking apart this nation that prides itself of its banner of “unity in diversity”.
A key contributing factor is the unintended negative outcome of the preferential voting system.
This system is supposed to reduce violence through the provision of making three choices instead of just one in the first past the post system.
The underlying features of this system is to elect the most popular person.
Naturally, the system favours the sitting candidate who is already the most popular person and with access to public funds, they can lure voters at all cost to remain in power.
As a result, more and more sitting candidates are beginning to be re-elected for more than three terms.
The net effect of this system does not provide opportunity for fair and equal distribution of leadership and power in each electorate.
As a consequence, we have election-related violence by supporters.
A proposed solution is to through constitutional reform, limit the terms of the sitting candidate to three consecutive terms.
In this way, when leadership and development opportunities are equally shared in the electorate, this may minimise chances of election violence.

Kelvin Waukave, Via email