The political impasse story

By STEWART WOSSA
THE questions surrounding the legality and legitimacy of the current O’Neill-Namah government and its bid to make right, the initial wrong with more wrongs has the crux of the whole political impasse following developments since Aug 2 last year.
The faceless political tacticians, masterminds and architects of the power-play in Waigani must be gleefully savouring with delight, their political spoils as the masses are left mesmerised by the total lunacy.
The trail of destruction is evident.
Many career officers in the public service, caught in the crossfire, have fallen casualty.
The learned legal eagles in the likes of Powes Parkop, Dr Allan Marat, Ano Pala and others within the government ranks must be riding at the apex of their legal and political careers, priding themselves of their brilliance in formulating legal formulas to make right their “vision for a stable government and a prosperous, happy, wealthy and healthy nation”.
The “wise men” in the likes of Sir Julius Chan, Bart Philemon and Sir Mekere Morauta to name a few, must be feeling very contented, patting and congratulating each other, conscientiously contemplating on their ingenuity and wisdom in tactfully mentoring and guiding a group of “young and vibrant leaders” in the likes of Sam Basil and Belden Namah to unwittingly lead the people and the country to the brink of total collapse.
They have helped laid the foundation for anarchy.
While the nation expects more constructive inputs from Parkop, his recent statement in The National is obviously a strategic media stunt to divert and shift the blame elsewhere, while his colleagues in parliament execute their collective strategy to defer the election date by six months (deferment has since been withdrawn).
Ironically, knowing the educational background and experiences of both men, one would have assumed that the insinuating remarks by Foreign Affairs Minister Ano Pala in response to his new Australian counterpart (Robert Carr) whom he described an “inexperienced federal minister” must have been intended as a joke.
At the core of the current political impasse, we acknowledge the existence of the elements of envy, jealousy and pride, all culminating to greed as the order of the day.
The sensitivity of the word “corruption” to ordinary citizens has been used by the faceless political tacticians and masterminds to lure the majority of illiterate and unsuspecting members of parliament to amass the numbers needed to implement their plot.
The reason given for a change of government was that the former Somare-Abal government was more “corrupt” and that the newer regime of O’Neill-Namah (and Polye) government had the task to “uncorrupt the corruption”.
The establishment of a task force sweep under the leadership of a civilian lawyer with the questionably-vested authority to direct law enforcement officers to arrest and charge suspects directly contravenes the constitutional mandate and responsibility of the national fraud squad of the Royal PNG Constabulary.
Since its establishment, the task force has been engaged in a number of high ranking witch-hunts, costing taxpayers substantial amount of money, with the promise of unraveling corrupt deals in the former Somare-Abal regime.
That promise remains to be delivered and is highly unlikely that it will ever be fulfilled.
It would be interesting for the task force’s books to be subjected to appropriate scrutiny as it is now apparently clear that it was specifically designed as “a job for the boys”.
The highly-publicised Tiensten-Wartoto deal at the national planning office died a natural death because there was and will never be any evidence of foul play. 
The recent confrontation between civilians and defence and police personnel in Wewak is part of a bigger witch-hunt, and similar scenarios may be anticipated for Wabag and Morobe.
It is now clear that the Somare-Abal government was hijacked on more personnel grounds than the public has been led to believe.
In taking office, the O’Neill-Namah government announced drastic policy shifts where the focus would be on education and health.
To the delight of the unsuspecting populace, the government started putting together the necessary framework to roll out its freebies.
While the populace embraced the change, the government became more and more adamant that it was indeed the government for the people and commenced its operation to “shoot down” anybody who stood in their way, including the judiciary.
In the wake of such policy shift, commentators argued for and against the policies and one that really

ade sense was the statement by the country representative of the Asian Development Bank.
He said the government’s reliance on the proceeds of the LNG project to sustain the policy was unworkable as the funds would only start trickling into the national coffers in 10 years’ time.
Whether or not the government took heed of this advice is anyone’s guess but what is obvious is that to legitimise its authority, it has now stepped on everyone’s toes to its own detriment.
Only time and history will tell of a controversial and unpopular government that, once upon a time, died a natural death.
It is obvious that the shorter-term popularity clouded O’Neill’s long-term vision and one can only assume that nature always has a way to naturally make right what is naturally wrong.
On the other hand, politics is said to make strange bedfellows but one has to be cautious of over-indulgence.
The sequence of events, statements, counter-statements and the hype of government activities the past six months or so has been both entertaining and very much predictable.
In analogy, it was entertaining because to the bemusement of the audience, the entertainer had put on a performance that was delightful in the beginning and ended in self-destruction.
It was predictable because from afar, one could easily foresee the self-destructive course the entertainer would have been heading.
It has been a very eventful six months and the writing has been on the wall all along. 
The Australian government and the international community had compromised their impartiality as custodians of the institution of democracy, pertaining to the issues of legitimacy and governance as shown by their stance in recent times.
An unsuspecting Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard sold her country’s impartiality by accepting O’Neill and his entourage, who had hijacked a legitimate government of PNG.
This gesture sent out a signal that it was “all right” to accept an illegitimate government so long as it “self-corrects” to legitimise its illegitimacy.
The Australian government further compromised itself by accepting O’Neill’s gesture of “goodwill” in donating towards the construction of a memorial structure at the Canberra War Memorial Park during the last state visit. 
Whatever transpired during the Gillard-O’Neill discussion during that state visit can only be assumed as cordial, as reported by both the Australian and PNG media.
The Australian opposition may also have compromised itself by the recent visit
to PNG by its deputy leader, Julie Bishop. 
Whatever her delegation may have been briefed as reported in the PNG media by the O’Neill government is a matter for her and her delegation to realise in time.
Among the first of the many responsibilities that the newly-appointed Australian foreign minister, Carr, faced was the intelligence report of the PNG government’s behind-the-scene discussions to defer the national election.
Being a no-nonsensical person, his first reaction was that of the original Carr, in which the government of PNG was sternly warned of possible Australian intervention in soliciting international support to impose sanctions on PNG.
This was later watered down and Carr was made to apologise to PNG for his outburst.
Interestingly, when the general election did actually get deferred despite Australian and New Zealand commitment to help provide logistical support, Carr’s reaction has been very soft.
We can only make an educated assumption that the Australian Labor government’s total dislike for the Somares may have been their reason to embrace O’Neill with open arms.
Their message has been very clear to O’Neill and that was for him to legitimise his illegitimate government, however it took.
We are now witnessing the after-effect of that understanding as legislations are enacted to curtail and shoot down people who stand in the way to their push to legitimise their illegitimate hijacking of a democratically-elected government.
lStewart Wossa has a masters in chemistry and previously taught at the University of PNG and University of Goroka. He is currently pursing postgraduate studies in Australia.