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from the ‘master’ previously; Wingti was made to swallow his own medicine, so to
speak. Tom Olga must have been a young voter during the heydays of Wingti who might
have had a keen eye on the ‘master’s’ techniques. Elections in PNG have been on one
hand, breeding grounds for ‘politics’, and ‘hunting grounds’ for social scientists, on the
other!
Established Melanesian principles of reciprocity loomed large as intervening factors for a
candidate’s survival in PNG elections. From the attainment of bigmanship status through
to the reinvention of tradition and customs, and/or adaptation of, altogether leave behind
little breathing space for a fair electoral process. Elections for the average voter
particularly for the person in between are in fact an opportune moment to gain cash and
store goods (see for instance Dorney 2002, and Haley 2002). This is generally inevitable
given the prevailing level of modern material poverty and negligence subjected to the
remote and poor people out there, and over a protracted periods of time by the state. This
includes the marginalized and unemployed in urban areas. 3 Election is a time to better
one’s own poor economic standing even if it is only for a few weeks. It is neither the
party policies nor, the national issues that matter (cf. Anere 2002: 87-88). Quite crudely,
it is a time when the uncouth and the oblivious intensively ‘prostitute’ there own
characters.
Therefore, claims of success by the most victorious political party in the 2007 national
elections were both hollow and a rhetorical farce. It is not the National Alliances party’s
(NA) policies that got the candidate in rather the party candidates’ adequate endowment
with ‘handout goods’, which ensured the party’s ultimate victory. ‘Shrewd distribution’
was not in fact a fund management requirement as most NA candidates were excessively
and recklessly supported. To the average Kiriwina-Goodenough voter, NA party was a
mere name attached to a Michael Somare, Prime Minister of PNG, and thus remains
insignificant. His one hour sojourn on the island of Kiriwina during the 2007 campaign
period did little to impress the voters for such a well known name glued to an obviously
weary face.
The NA sponsored candidate for Kiriwina-Goodenough seat readily assumed the
extravagant strategy with a modestly estimated spending of anything between a half and a
million kina. 4 It was no surprise that the candidate had an unassailable lead with 3973
votes after the count of the first preferences. This was further vindicated when the lead
was surrendered at the last minute to the eventual winner who had surreptitiously
garnered the secondary votes everywhere. The NA candidate’s, together with the sitting
MP’s narrow-focused strategy in setting up lavish-feasting ‘support bases’ cost them the
required secondary votes to come from elsewhere. The NA candidate would have won by
a mile had the situation been that of the previous First Past the Post (FPP) method. 5 On
the other hand, and regrettably, the 3973 votes was way below the required 50%+1
absolute majority required for a victory considering the amount of wastage of funds and
resources which might as well be used for better causes.
Perhaps the most contemptuous aspect of PNG election process was to do with the
unmediated and excessive influence on election rules and procedures by unscrupulous
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