Keep Limited Preferential Voting (LPV) system Media reports last week quoted Prime Minister James Marape expressing his desire to “reform” the electoral process before the next national election in 2022. That is good to know.

I have been writing about the need to fix the electoral problems experienced in 2017 and past elections over the last three weeks and it is pleasing to read about the Prime Minister being interested in reforming the electoral system. We await the details of the reforms the PM has in mind in the coming days.

Mr Marape was the Leader of Government Business and Finance Minister in the last O’Neill-Abel government and he is well-versed with what the government did to run the last election in 2017 and the problems that emerged as widely debated, researched and reported.

The PM is reported to have expressed his keenness in reforming the voting system to return to the “one vote, one candidate” or first-past-the-post voting system. This is a system that was discarded for being easily corrupted by candidates, supporters and officials to engineer an outcome.

If the Marape government goes ahead with replacing the current limited preferential voting (LPV) system and restores the old system of “one vote, one candidate”, it is a recipe for increased cheating and chaos. As I wrote three weeks ago, politics and elections are high stakes engagements where candidates and their backers expend so much of their personal and private money and resources due to the lack of a strong political party system. These people do not just expend their money and resources in an election for public office for nothing. They have in mind the gains, very personal gains, which are among the main causes of the increased incidences of corrupt practices in Papua New Guinea.

These candidates and their backers and supporters are the people who would be really upset when the first-past-the-post system is restored and is unduly influenced by the incumbent MPs. The sitting MPs have the head-start with all public resources at their disposal and it is the same with wealthy and well connected candidates who are going to use their influences to pick up more votes ahead of the Mr Joe Average candidates.

The instances of undue influence are likely to increase because it is the first vote and only choice for a candidate that voters will cast and influential candidates would do anything to get the results they want. Despite the best intentions of the LPV and the barriers it has against undue influences, candidates and their minders have made attempts to influence results. We saw that starkly in the last national election in 2017. However, weighing the shortcomings against advantages of LPV, PNG is better off with it than the first-past-the-post system.

The biggest problem the first-past-the-post system will bring when re-introduced will be that it will give a very unfair advantage to the sitting MPs.

This is because, unlike in the past, the present sitting MPs have the advantage as chair of the district development authorities (DDAs) and provincial governments (in the case of governors) and they have the power to decide how public funds, projects and resources are used and manpower assigned.

The MPs have authority over the disbursement of District Services Improvement Program (DSIP) and Provincial Services Improvement Program (PSIP) funds among other public monies and resources under their stewardship. The MPs as chair of DDAs and Provincial Assemblies also have influence over the local level government members or councilors and LLG presidents and mayors. Unlike in the past the LLG MPs do not operate separately but work under the chairmanship of their district MP or governor. This places them in a compromising situation to return to the LLGs and wards to campaign for the chairmen of the DDA or Provincial Assembly. This has already been the cause and a re-introduced first-past-the-post system will give them significant competitive advantage because they are part of the incumbent regime with State resources at their disposal and seeking re-election.

These advantages of the sitting MPs were not there when the first-past-the-post system existed in the past. Yet the system was abused, and this resulted in the introduction of the LPV system.

The first-past-the-post system will also be advantage to influential wealthy candidates who would have money and resources to spend and influence the outcome of an election.

Let’s face it. Certain sitting MPs and new candidates and their supporters have tried different tricks to beat the LPV system and they have succeed in some instances in past elections. However, LPV is still a superior system in terms of giving opportunity to all candidates a chance to poll in preferences and cutback on some of the direct undue influences that went on in the previous system it replaced.

One of the most important features of LPV that enhances democratic representative is that it levels the playing field quite significantly between the well-resourced sitting MPs and wealthy candidates and other candidates who may not be as well-resourced.

It gives all candidates a chance to pick up votes from the three preferences and provides opportunity to all voters in an electorate to decide in through the preferences. This increases the democratic representation in the candidate who eventually wins.

If there has to be reforms in the electoral process as expressed by the PM, leave the LPV system alone and consider reforming other areas, some of which I discussed over the last three weeks.

One area that seriously needs reform is the political party system. It needs to be strengthened by legally reducing the number of parties and making them well-resourced so they can fund candidates who do not have to spend their own money and resources and those of their relatives and supporters. Presently, the candidates who eventually win end up in Parliament and are busy thinking about how best they will recoup what they and their backers spent in the election. This then leads to corrupt conduct of taking up contracts and allocating resources in such a way to recoup and make a profit from what was used in the last election.

The reform to the political party system must also be to cut down the large number of “independent” candidates who have become a nuisance in the electoral process. Many of the “independent” candidates only contest to break up base votes of rival candidates to the advantage of another candidate or party that privately sponsors them. This is an unfair practice and needs to be addressed.

Campaign financing is a significant area of concern that spawns corruption in the way it is practiced and this must also be looked at in the reforms to curtail the number of political parties and strengthening their ability to finance candidates.

Any reform to the electoral process is great but they must be for the long-term equitable democratic gain of PNG, and not to retain incumbency of a government. I therefore say that LPV should not be replaced. The LPV is a system that levels the playing field in an election and gives chance to all candidates to compete. Thank you for reading, my wantoks. If you agree with me or disagree with me, leave your comments with the editor on email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. I will talk to you all next week.