Politics, Religion, and the Churches:The 2002 Election in Papua New Guinea

Abstract

In Papua New Guinea in the immediate aftermath of the 2002 national election, many of more than two million potential voters looked for ways to express their feelings of anger, disappointment, and frustration. With 43 political parties and 2785 candidates vying for 109 seats in parliament, some hitches were predictable. However, no one expected the extent of the chaos and intimidation that was experienced in many parts of Papua New Guinea during June and July 2002. After having spent 29 years in Papua New Guinea, I am well aware of how foolhardy it is to try to generalize about the situation in that country but on this occasion there was a pervasive sense that something had gone terribly wrong. On the first day of polling, the Prime Minister, Sir Mekere Morauta, having had to wait for nearly five hours to cast his vote, was reported as saying, “This is more than a bungle. Someone should be hung for this” (Post-Courier, 18 June:1). That was on 17 June and the situation subsequently deteriorated. The Prime Minister was fortunate. Bishop Arnold Orowae, Catholic bishop in Enga Province, lined up in Wabag to cast his vote only to find that his name did not appear on the electoral roll. He left without voting and with a feeling of having been disenfranchised. In Port Moresby, 90 students at the Don Bosco Technical College were registered so that their names would be on the Common Roll but on voting day only five of their names appeared. The other 85 students were left disappointed and angry. This was a common experience. In the Highlands, what Bill Standish has called “gunpoint” democracy was rife with presiding officers being forced to sign ballot papers while facing down the barrel of a gun (Standish 1996).1 The police were outnumbered and outgunned and the army had to be called in to try to bring about a semblance of order in some provinces such as Southern Highlands and Enga Provinces. This paper discusses the present-day political significance of Christianity and the churches in Papua New Guinea against the background of political unrest and confusion in which the 2002 election was conducted.