Love-hate relationship

THE love-hate relationship between a serving Prime Minister and the public, including Members of Parliament, is as old as the country itself.
Since Papua New Guinea become independent in 1975, the public have embraced incoming prime ministers with high hopes and well wishes.
It has been like a marriage.
There is the initial excitement for the newly-weds followed by the honeymoon the as time wears on the marriage peaks followed by a plateau period.
After marriage reaches the plateau period the couple have known each other well and start taking things for granted.
Memories of the earlier excitement begins to fade, some home truths and realities kick and they couple begin to argue and blame each for all and sundry.
Soon the marriage becomes unstable and there is call for divorce.
The call for divorce is sustained with vested interests and ambition taking a toll.
Eventually the marriage ends with one party dumping the other and finding another partner.
And the honeymoon resumes with the new partner with a lot of talking-down of the rejected partner.
Founding Prime Minister Grand Chief Sir Michael Somare is one former prime minister who knows more about this cycle having been dumped by the public several times through their elected leaders since the first successful vote of no-confidence in 1980.
The last time PM Somare was humiliated by the public and unceremoniously divorced as Prime Minister was on Aug 2, 2011, under a very controversial Parliament vote which was later declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court twice.
But Parliament, using the separation of power argument, did not budge and the incoming PM Peter O’Neill continued.
When O’Neill assumed office as PM on Aug 2, 2011, he suddenly become the darling of the press, university students and the public.
There was that jovial honeymoon to the extent that the public hardly paid attention to the two Supreme Court judgments that said that the event of Aug 2, 2011, was unconstitutional.
Like a partner eyeing a new partner stubborn with divorce, the public wanted the O’Neill Government and did not want to have anything to do with the Somare’s NA-led government.
After a few years, the public’s excitement about the O’Neill government started to wane and calls came for his government to be changed.
The rocky relations between the PO government and the public including certain MPs had started in earnest.
What happed in the weeks from April to May 30 is a culmination of the marriage that was breaking up.
And sure it did on May 30, 2019, with a new partner of the public in PM James Marape and his government assuming office.
Like the classical new marriage scenario, the public and the Marape-led government are saying all the right things pleasing to each other’s ears and doing things pleasing to their eyes.
How long this marriage will last remains to be seen in a country with a notorious record of the public disliking Prime Ministers after the initial marriage and honeymoon.
For now, let’s keep our fingers crossed.

Proactive Agent ,
Pom