Brief introduction to Politics in Papua New Guinea

Papua New Guinea is a member of the Commonwealth of Nations, and Queen Elizabeth II is the head of state. It had been expected by the constitutional convention, which prepared the draft constitution, and by Australia, the outgoing metropolitan power, that Papua New Guinea would choose not to retain its link with the British monarchy.

The founders, however, considered that imperial honours had a cachet that the newly independent state would not be able to confer with a purely indigenous honours system — the Monarchy was thus maintained. The Queen is represented by the Governor-General of Papua New Guinea, currently Sir Paulias Matane.

Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands are unusual among Commonwealth realms in that their Governors-General are effectively selected by the legislature rather than by the executive branch, as in some parliamentary democracies.

Actual executive power lies with the Prime Minister, who heads the cabinet. The current Prime Minister is Sir Michael Somare. The unicameral National Parliament has 109 seats, of which 20 are occupied by the governors of the 19 provinces and the National Capital District (NCD). Candidates for members of parliament are voted upon when the prime minister calls a national election, a maximum of five years after the previous national election.

In the early years of independence, the instability of the party system led to frequent votes of no confidence in Parliament with resulting falls of the government of the day and the need for national elections, in accordance with the conventions of parliamentary democracy.
In recent years, successive governments have passed legislation preventing such votes sooner than 18 months after a national election. This has arguably resulted in greater stability, though perhaps at a cost of reducing the accountability of the executive branch of government. Elections in PNG attract large numbers of candidates.

After independence in 1975, members were elected by the first past the post system, with winners frequently gaining less than 15% of the vote. Electoral reforms in 2001 introduced the Limited Preferential Vote system (LPV), a version of the Alternative Vote. The 2007 general election was the first to be conducted using LPV.

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