Change in the voting system in Papua New Guinea

By Dr Alphonse Gelu

The Registry in 2015 instituted a study to look at a voting system that is friendly towards political parties. It is the interest of the Registry to do this under its mandate as stipulated by the Organic Law which is to strengthen political parties in the country. The Registry requested the National Research Institute (NRI) under the late Dr Ray Anere to lead the study. Dr Anere teamed up with a couple of resource persons from the University of Papua New Guinea, the team completed the major part of the studies. The study came to a stop after the passing of the Late Dr Anere. In 2016, the Registrar Dr Gelu decided to re-activate the study by engaging Dr Henry Okole, a political scientist by profession to complete the study. Dr Okole has far reaching knowledge and experience in the area of elections and would deliver according to the ToR. The main Terms of Reference (ToR) for the study is to look at a number of countries that are a currently using a voting system that allows the voters to cast their votes on political parties rather than candidates. The number of candidates winning under such a voting system would be determined purely on the total number of votes that the party scores in an election which would then translate into the number of seats a party wins in the Parliament. The three countries that the study looked at were New Zealand, Australia and Fiji. Fiji has the most interesting voting system where the entire country becomes the only electorate. Votes are given to parties which are then translated into seats in Parliament. The Registry aims to pay a visit to Fiji to take a close look at this system however funding is an issue. The Registry is thinking of requesting assistance from its stakeholders for assistance to enable it to look at the voting systems first