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My own generosity also included the unprecedented efforts of my brother Rodney and I
in distributing 1kg rice freely to households and individuals during the drought crisis ten
years ago (1997-1998). This gesture was rivaled only by the then MP, Mr. William
Ebenosi, who went out of his way to facilitate the budgeted government relief supply.
This nonetheless served the MP well.
However, all of these count to nothing on the eve of voting as if voters conveniently
forget genuine efforts for instantaneous ‘vote-buying’ efforts. I had no regrets and had
publicly assured the voters so in various formal addresses.
Of the two main islands covering the Kiriwina-Goodenough electorate however, I was
only able to conduct my campaign on one, Kiriwina, the Trobriand archipelago. Kiriwina
is politically made up of 33 council wards, with 96 villages 12 , and a total population of
just over 30,000. By 2007, the registered eligible voters were just over 16,000 adults. I
will return to voter projections later.
I covered all 33 wards comprising 72 main villages, and making a total of 73 lectures in
34 days with an average of three lectures per day. 13 This was literally accomplished by
foot 14 , and outboard motor for the outliers. I had between six to twenty followers as
assistants in all my rounds. Unlike the other candidates, I alone spoke, commented and
answered questions in all my 73 lectures being mindful of the voters’ disdain of followers
pretending and thereby speaking for the candidate. My followers only listened and
quietly discussed with voters that sat next to them. Among many other positives, I was
also commended for such an approach, which I had deliberately engineered. Though
satisfied with my own personal triumph amidst the odds, I was physically, not mentally
exhausted by the time I completed my field campaign.
Weeks before my first presentation, I sent out written advanced notices to
village/church/youth leaders, and ward councilors of my scheduled presentations in their
respective villagers. The notices were distributed by foot, and through my two most
reliable assistants. Overall, the ward councilors were most unreliable in terms of relaying
messages and organizing the people before hand. I also noticed that cooperation might be
guaranteed if they were given or promised with cash to perform. Indeed some of them
were already aligned with another candidate especially the seemingly better endowed
provincial seat candidates.
I tried to organize a candidates’ forum by going on air through the provincial radio
station. This cost me K200 for a series of message relays. Letters were also hand
delivered to candidates at their homes and in between campaigns. However this was
aborted in the last hour due to late notice, according to a few candidates. The intention
was for all the candidate nominees to gather together at two separate public places on
each island, and debate electorate related issues of concern. It seemed that certain
candidates found the idea tasteless, intimidating, and perhaps feared the potential of being
exposed to the voters of some weakness. Hence, they quickly assumed an indifferent
attitude to the whole idea. My vision was for PNG to one day arrive at a more
transparently competitive approach and openly debate issues of concern rather than the
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