political parties

Dr Gelu said this upon receiving acquittals from the PNG National Party after the 2017 National General Elections.

He said it is important for parties and winning candidates to submit their financial returns within three months after the date they were declared.

Gelu explains that this is a requirement under sections 88 and 89 of the Organic Law on the Integrity of Political Parties and Candidates.

PNG National Party General Secretary, Dick Wama, presented the party’s national election report and acquittals on Friday to the Registrar of Political Parties.

The political party with the highest number of MPs declared so far is People’s National Congress (PNC) Party (8) MPs followed by Pangu Party (5) then National Alliance (2).

Parties with only 1 MP declared so far are Melanesian Liberal Party, United Resource Party, Christian Democratic Party and Coalition for Reform.

Among the 21 declared were Prime Minister and Member for Ialibu-Pangia, Peter O’Neill, and Pangu Party leader Sam Basil, who reclaimed the Bulolo Open seat.

The issue of Writs for the 2017 National Elections will be issued on April 20.

The forum will be held twice a week this month, and will be open to the general public.

An official announcement will be made by the country’s think tank today.

A total of 19 political parties have representation in the current Parliament, and with the elections less than 2 months away, many deregistered and new parties have registered with the Political Parties and Candidates Commission.

The Registry of Political Parties would like to promote debates amongst leaders of various political parties as they must become visible to the people.

Registrar of Political Parties Dr Alphonse Gelu urges leaders to talk about their policies thus making elections in PNG to be policy driven by the leaders of the political parties.

Dr Gelu said it’s better to put leaders of political parties together in a room and give them equal time to talk about their parties and their policies.

Registrar of Political Parties Dr Alphonse Gelu said parties must not exist only in Port Moresby and not only in certain provinces in the country.

Dr Gelu said the Organic Law requires all the parties to be nationally based, that is they must be represented in all parts of the country.

This also requires them to put up candidates in all the different parts of the country.

“The Registry would be monitoring this aspect of geographical representation by parties closely.

The Integrity of Political Parties and Candidates Commission this week approved the applications of seven new political parties.

Gelu said the timing of registration of these new parties poses a challenge for them.

The parties now have only a month to tell the people about themselves including their policies.

They have to compete with well-established political parties such as People’s National Congress (PNC), National Alliance (NA), Pangu, National Party, United Party and PNG Party.

The seven political parties were presented with their certificates today alongside two other parties that were already approved.

The new parties are Paradise Kingdom Party, PNG First Party, Model Nation Party, Trust PNG Party, PNG Youths Party, Nations Interest Party and PNG Social Party.

The two other parties that were present to receive their certificates were PNG Human Rights Party and Wantok in Godly Services.

Registrar of Political Parties, Dr. Alphonse Gelu, says political parties fail to address everyday issues which he coined as ‘bread and butter issues.’

He said one of the major ‘bread and butter issues’ which are highlighted in elections overseas is the issue of tax.

“In Papua New Guinea I’m very, very surprised that despite this very big number of political parties, I think we have 35, none of them talk about taxes.

The party secretaries had a meeting on December 2 at the Office of the Registry of Political Parties and Candidate Commission and came up with the communique.

The meeting was chaired by Pangu Pati General Secretary Morris Tovebae.

In a press conference today in Port Moresby, Tovebae said the rights of the persons to contest to promote free, fair and safe 2017 National elections is being infringed with the proposed increase of the nomination fees.

This is one of the key topics of training given to Political Party Executives at the Learning and Development Workshop in Port Moresby today.

Lotte Geunis, a Suva based Parliamentary Consultant with the United Nations Development Program, informed participants of the workshop on the importance of gender mainstreaming in political parties.

In an interview with Loop PNG, Geunis said intending women candidates find it difficult to run for seats and one of the reasons was because of the lack of endorsement.