From Tari to highest office in the country

BIRTHDAY

Commemorative feature on the life and leadership of PNG’s 8th prime minister

ON a rain-soaked night in April 1971, a young woman walked for over four hours through the dark ridges of Tari basin to give birth.

She was accompanied only by her mother and a few female relatives. After many climbs and crossing several rivers, the small group arrived at a church-run health centre in Halengoali where a baby boy drew his first breath.

For his traditional Papua New Guinean name, his parents named him Hame, meaning ‘Most Treasured’. The name was specifically chosen to reflect the parent’s deep yearning for this child. Hame’s father, a young Seventh-Day Adventist pastor, had made a special plea to God that the life of his second child be spared. Earlier, they had lost their first child – born a stillbirth – in the difficult, swampy region of what is now Western Province to complications resulting from heavy malaria his mother had suffered.

Fifty-five years later to this day, April 24, the father is now a retired pastor. And that son is the eighth Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea.

James Hame Marape – Grand Chief of Logohu, Member for Tari-Pori, and Prime Minister –  has come a long way from his very humble beginnings, being born and growing up in the remotest parts of Papua New Guinea. Tari. Nomad River. Oksapmin. Kandep. Omara. Minz.

Living by firelight before the introduction of kerosene; basic second-hand clothing brought in at intervals by a church plane, no shoes, selling his mother’s scones to supplement his father’s limited income, and staying back during holidays to work on the school farm and businessmens’ coffee gardens to make enough money for the next year’s fees.

To understand James Marape and how he leads the country is to understand the hardships of rural PNG that have shaped his character and moulded his vision.

From Minj Primary School in Western Highlands, to Kabiufa Adventist Secondary in the Eastern Highlands, and finally to the University of Papua New Guinea, James Marape’s education was a journey across the geography of his own country.

He graduated from University of Papua New Guinea with a Bachelor of Arts in 1993, and would later return for postgraduate studies in Environmental Science. At this university, he was shaped by the great questions that still haunt this country: How do we lift our people from poverty without surrendering our sovereignty? How do we bless the land without cursing it? How do we become modern without ceasing to be Melanesian?

These were not abstract questions for him but questions his generation inherited from Somare’s generation — the questions of a young nation still finding its feet.

Marape’s journey into politics began in 2002. He attempted the Tari-Pori seat but the election was cancelled due to violence. The supplementary election of 2003 ended in defeat. Court challenges consumed years. Lesser men would have turned back. But not Marape.

In 2007, under the banner of the National Alliance Party, he contested again — and this time, founding father and Prime Minister Grand Chief Sir Michael Somare himself went to Tari to campaign for him. Marape’s main campaign platform pushing for the breakaway of Hela from Southern Highlands and its formation as a new province was a masterstroke with Sir Michael behind him as Prime Minister.

Sure enough, Marape won, and went into Parliament under the tutelage of Sir Michael.

In Parliament, Marape rose steadily. He was appointed Vice Minister for Works, Transport and Civil Aviation, and later elevated to Minister for Education in the Somare Cabinet. He fought to deliver Hela province to the point that, during a Parliament session, Marape banged the table and shouted “No Hela, no PNG LNG’. The outburst led directly to the creation of Hela in 2012.  His interest was that his people receive every benefit of the gas project entitled to them.

Through the turbulent years that followed — the 2011 constitutional crisis, the painful transition to the O’Neill government, the years as Minister for Finance — Marape carried with him the quiet counsel of Sir Micahel. And on May 30 May 2019, after resigning from Cabinet, he was elected the eighth Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea by a thunderous vote of 101 to eight.

No Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea has ever had it easy. Marape’s premiership has been tested by fire from its earliest days. A global pandemic that shook the world and strained every national treasury. A volatile global economy that sent commodity prices lurching. Resource negotiations that demanded the courage to say no to deals that did not serve the Papua New Guinean people. Votes of no confidence. Continuous Opposition campaigns and lies. The weight of expectation from a nation of nearly 10 million people, each one hoping that this time, the promise of 1975 might finally be fulfilled.

But Marape has navigated these trials with a combination that those close to him recognise instantly – the calm patience of a Melanesian elder, the moral compass from the Bible, and the quiet steel of a Huli man who does not forget the meaning of his word.

When the pressures have mounted, he has returned — again and again — to prayer. When critics have mocked the vision, he has answered with conviction. When the nation has wavered, he has stood.

His leadership philosophy rests on a simple but unshakeable foundation: That the nation’s natural wealth must be equally shared; that no one should be left behind in education, health, and financial empowerment, and that every man, woman and child has the equal protection and care under the Constitution of the country.

From Somare, Marape inherited the ethos of unity across diversity. From his missionary parents, he inherited the ethos of service as worship. From the Huli culture, he inherited the ethos of loyalty as life. These three streams flow together in his governance.

When he introduced “Take Back PNG” as his mantra, it was a statement of moral intent — that the wealth beneath our feet belongs to the children who walk upon it, and that no generation has the right to sell the future of the next.

Under his leadership, Papua New Guinea has pursued a resource policy reset that asserts Papua New Guinean ownership of Papua New Guinean wealth. The Connect PNG programme has begun knitting together a country long divided by geography.

Education, health, and district-level development have received renewed attention. The Bougainville question has been navigated with care and dignity. And on the international stage, Marape became the first Pacific Islands leader ever to address the Australian Parliament — a moment that marked not only his own stature but the coming of age of Pacific voice in global affairs.

These are not the achievements of a finished journey but one that is still being laid. To this day, James Marape dreams openly, and without apology.

He dreams of a Papua New Guinea that one day will become the richest black Christian nation on earth. He dreams of a country where every child has access to education, healthcare, and economic opportunity. He dreams of an economy no longer held hostage to commodity cycles, but diversified across agriculture, fisheries, tourism, and the creativity of its youth. He dreams of a Pacific where Papua New Guinea is not a small voice but a leading one.

“What is wrong with aspiring to be the best?,” Marape has asked his critics. “As Somare dreamed of independence, so too must we dream for what comes next.

“Singapore did it in a generation. South Korea did it in a generation. Malaysia did it in a generation. Why should Papua New Guinea settle for less?”

Fifty-five is a reflective age. It is old enough to have known loss, and young enough to still dream. It is the age at which a man looks both backward and forward with clearer eyes.

James Marape, at 55, stands at a remarkable crossroads in the history of Papua New Guinea. Behind him lies a journey improbable by any measure. Before him stretches the unwritten chapter of what this country might yet become.

He was mentored and blessed by Somare to become the bridge linking the last generation to the next generation.

On this special day of his, his 55^th birthday, he honours God.

“I dedicate this day to my God. And my parents who continue to live their simple lives – no car, village house. I mention my siblings who hold their own in the community. And my wife Rachael and our children who are my blessings. They have lived with the downside of my public life, putting up with slander and hate because of my work.

“I thank all my extended family and tribes from my mother’s and father’s sides who have supported me over the years.”