AN academic has raised concern over the lack of reforms being implemented to improve electoral processes before the General Election 2027 (GE27).
Terence Wood, a fellow at the Australian National University’ Development Policy Centre, said: “Electoral reform ought to start in the immediate aftermath of electoral failure. But it never does in Papua New Guinea.
“Another part of the answer is that miracle cures – usually biometric voting or electronic counting – are very tempting, particularly when touted by foreign companies with slick sales pitches.
“Although technology may be tempting, it’s no substitute for the dreary work required to run elections well.
“Other than making the electoral process more complex, biometric voting won’t help if the roll is a historical artefact.
“And, although it’s a slow process, thanks to the presence of scrutineers, ballot counting is actually pretty good in Papua New Guinea.
“Good enough that the last thing anyone should want to do is introduce a complex and opaque new technology to replace it.”
Wood also argued that the “clientelist nature” of Papua New Guinea politics also affected the conduct of elections and lack of electoral reforms being implemented.
“Clientelism leads to MPs focusing more on patronage, rather than national issues,” he said.
“General elections are, by their very nature, a national issue and so they receive too little attention.
“This structural lack of political will mean that the sustained domestic effort required to improve electoral quality is always lacking, all the more so because poorly-run elections actually help some MPs when it comes time to contesting their seats.”
Wood said that with about one year to go before GE27, there was still time to address much of the issues affecting the country’s electoral processes.
“The trouble is that, if you want future elections to be better, you need to start planning today,” he said.
“Building a new, accurate roll, in particular, takes years.
“If you don’t want disenfranchised citizens, and if you don’t want their disenfranchisement to be accompanied by overly enfranchised citizens who vote numerous times, you need an up-to-date and accurate roll.”
