Rise in fees to affect parties

By CLIFFORD FAIPARIK
An increase in nomination fees from K1000 to K10,000 will hit hard smaller parties’ campaigns for the 2017 national election, United Party leader and Foreign Affairs Minister Rimbink Pato says.
Pato who is the only United Party MP in the O’Neill government said during the party’s fundraising dinner last week in Port Moresby that the local television stations did not host electronic opinion polling to make it easier for smaller parties like his to strategise and allocate limited funds to campaign in priorities areas throughout the country.
Pato said at the Dynasty restaurant in Port Moresby on Thursday night that they were looking at fielding 40 candidates throughout the country.
“But with the legislation changes to the nomination fee to be K10,000 per candidate, the cost of campaigning like printing posters will increase,” he said.
“The difficulty of the country’s economic situation is such that there will be a high amount of capital used.
“And for smaller parties like the United Party, due to the tight economic environment, it will be so difficult to run a major political campaign. It is also hard to predict your strength and weakness so that you can strategise and priorities like in Australia and US where you can rely on the opinion polls on TV and you can assess how smart you have addressed your voters or what kind of presentation you have made an impact on the voters.
“Because with  the scores generated from the electronic polling you will know  where and how you can  allocate funds  to campaign strongly to  know what type of results  you need to form government.  But here  in PNG it is different.”
Pato said that United Party was the oldest political party formed in 1967.
“It is also the first party to form the Opposition after Papua New Guinea gained independence in 1975.
“We were the conservative group that opposed independence because we believed that we were not ready to run a complex government and administrative system to deliver government services like health and education to our people in the rural areas.
“So United Party‘s promise today is that we want to play a key role.
“We will be part of the future government to put good policies in place like good governance, infrastructure, economic, education, health and how we can deliver better on the ground.
“The key focus for us today is that same focus that took United Party to the Opposition.”