MPs must learn to nurture political parties

IN matured democracies, political parties serve as competing institutions for different groups.
Their policies are then sold to the public during campaign pe­riod to lure votes from the people.
Election is seen as a market place where parties come to sell their policies and voters come to buy these policies with their votes.
This marks a beginning of a new contract or a renewal of an existing one.
The political parties, through their MPs, and the voters uphold this contract in high esteem.
The politicians know that their decisions and actions must best reflect the desires of their voters.
It is this thought that promotes and sustains political discipline and integrity of the individual
MP, the office he or she occupies and the political party.
In my view, political parties in PNG were formed to serve the same intrinsic ideals as those in matured democracies.
Our Constitution and other enabling laws that give legal effect to the existence of the office of the registrar of political parties strive to ensure political parties are nurtured well, so that they can contribute in a healthy way to enable the growth of our multi-party Westminster democracy.
However, the trend of our poli­tical parties’ power play has reached an extent where the noble ideals have been hijacked.
What our politicians fail to realise is that in-fighting between party members, executives and their followers not only reflect the weakness of the party, but leads to a lack of confidence in the party.
In the end, such political parties die a natural death.
I believe some of our political parties will go that way as they have failed to live up to the aspirations of the people.

Bomai Witne
Goroka