Papua New Guinea prime minister re-installed
By
John Braddock
3 August 2017
Peter O’Neill, Papua New Guinea’s prime minister, was placed back in office when the country’s parliament reconvened on Wednesday following national elections. O’Neill received 60 votes from newly elected parliamentarians, with 46 voting against. He will now begin a second five-year term, but with a significantly decreased majority.
Parliament was recalled even though results from only 106 of 111 seats had been declared. With the remaining seats still to be confirmed, the final shape of parliament is yet to be determined. A high number of electoral petitions is expected also in the court of disputed returns.
The hasty reconvening of parliament by Governor-General Bob Dadae was undoubtedly designed to legitimise the deeply undemocratic and disputed election, and intended to quash widespread popular anger over its outcome. Dadae had already invited O’Neill to form a new government last Friday, when more than a quarter of official returns were still outstanding.
The parliamentary vote was held despite objections of some legal figures, who said Electoral Commissioner Patilias Gamato did not follow the law during the return of the election writs. Speaker Job Pomat declared that since O’Neill’s Peoples National Congress Party (PNC)—of which Pomat himself is a member—gained the highest number of seats, his nomination met legal requirements.
O’Neill earlier declared that the PNC had negotiated an agreement with the Peoples Progress Party, the United Resources Party and the Social Democratic Party to form a coalition government.
The two-week voting period that ended on July 8 was dominated by vote-rigging, the wholesale omission of names from the electoral roll, ballot box-tampering…