The National Election next year (2022) will arguably be an all-important one since our first post-independence election in 1977.

Much is at stake. Much is to be gained. Our current Members of Parliament entered this term of office (2017-2022) following one of the worst national elections ever conducted in PNG history in 2017. High profile international and national reports on the 2017 election highlighted many things that went wrong

• from mysteries missing names in the Common Roll in various polling booths of certain electorates to the existence of more ballot papers compared to number of registered voters in certain electorates.

The mainstream media and social media were flooded with reports of how people felt they were unfairly affected by the sheer magnitude of the problems that existed during the 2017 election.

In a number of electorates in the restive Highlands region deaths, injuries and destruction to property were recorded. Some critics such as the late former Prime Minister Sir Mekere Morauta called for a commission of inquiry to be set up to investigate the management of 2017 election. But the government of the day watered down this suggestion and the contents of the reports from the international and domestic entities, claiming the 2017 election was generally fine. In some parts of the world, the widely condemned poor management of the 2017 National Election would have led to the people taking things upon themselves by conducting protests on the streets for days and demanding fresh elections or remedial actions to that effect.

Well, this being PNG, people are often ‘tolerant’ and none of that happened. Our people’s tolerance of such things in my view has to do with lack of education of people’s rights to protest mismanagement and corruption and secondly due to people’s strong affinity towards parochial and tribal groupings. Despite all that, the country had to move on and it did in the cause of this term of Parliament. Despite what happened in the 2017 National Elections, the PNG constituency looked forward to the Parliament and MPs in it doing the right things by the wishes of the people to run the country better.

People looked forward to the economy picking up with the input of the government having its say. They looked forward to the proceeds of the PNG LNG Project hitting the national coffers. This has not happened since the inaugural shipment of first LNG ago in May 2014, with the earnings tied up on repaying loans of the State. The citizens also looked forward to the opening of several petroleum and mining projects under terms favorable to all parties. This did not happen with Parliament caught up in personality politics on who should lead government and be in government. As a result, there was a change in government on 30^th May 2019 and still this construction-ready projects are yet to be given the all-clear to go ahead into the construction phase.

The incoming government’s non-renewal of the Porgera special mining lease agreement submitted by project operator Barrick Niugini Ltd in April 2020 added to the uncertainty that hanged over the nation. With Barrick and the State agreeing recently to open the mine under new terms provides, there is light at the end of the tunnel for the myriad of beneficiaries of that project.

As PNG pinned its hopes on new developments in the extractive industries to provide the cushion from the impacts of the global economic down-turn, the COVID 19 pandemic hit our shores in late March last year and changed the whole dynamics of the country’s affairs. PNG like all countries had to rethink and reboot its economy in ways tolerant to the “new normal” under the presence of COVID 19.

On this front, the ordinary people like us do not know the economic blueprint of our country in the COVID 19-era. We have yet to be precisely told the shape and outlook of our economy in the midst of COVID 19 what the government is doing about it.

What are the new priority economic focus areas for us to work on while mitigating through the existence of the pandemic and the global economic down-turn?

Where are we the ordinary people supposed to look at to give us hope and direction that we can find our own economic niches and contribute?

Sectors such as tourism and associated business activities where many grassroots people participate in is among those hardest hit by the pandemic.

What am I saying? I am saying that this outgoing term of parliament is yet another lost opportunity for the nation.

What can we do? We can look forward to the next term of Parliament after the 2022 National Election to take us to the drawing board and give us a sense of real new direction amidst the presence of COVID 19, down-turn in the global economy and our self-induced problems with serious corruption in public offices.

What does this mean? What will it take? Well, the 2022 National Election gives us the golden opportunity to study candidates and sitting MPs carefully and vote into Parliament credible leaders with impeccable reputation and acumen to provide a real sense of direction for our nation amidst the presence COVID 19, global economic downturn and the existence of our so-called “systemic and systematic” corruption.

We have this remaining 12 months (before the writs are issued in April 2022) to study credible men and women in our districts and provinces and consider them for public office as our next lot of Members of Parliament.

The choice is ours, the people. We abuse our choices through tribalism and parochial or sectarian interests and we will remain the same as in the present term of Parliament. We cannot really complain when we abuse our chance to make a chance in a National Election.