Vanilla Farmer Alan Bird talks about his 2002 Election experience, this article was first published on the National Newspaper's editorial section on the 2nd of July 2002
Being a strongly ideological person, I entered this election race not only confident of winning the seat but also of being a catalyst to the dawn of dramatic, positive change to the economic and social fabric of my Sepik society. My high-minded ideals have taken a real battering in the last three months of electioneering.
As we neared the end of the campaign, I became much more philosophical, as the reality of the depths of the corruption that pervades our society dragged me out of my dreams. On the one hand I wept at the total lack of interest that had been shown toward Sepik people on the other side of the Sepik River between our borders with the Highlands and West Sepik. On the other, I was shattered by the attitude of people on my side of the river whose sole drive in life appears to be to live off government or MP freebies for the rest of their lives. These people appear to be under the impression that their MP, all intending candidates, and the Government owe them something. Why the voters are owed money and freebies still remains a mystery, at least to me.
Being a farmer I was fortunate to only associate with hard-working people for a good part of my time here in Sepik, but as I tried to make the transition from farming to politics the other side of my society began to rear its ugly face. I am not a Member of Parliament and may never be, but I already have more than K30 million
worth of "funding requests" sitting on my table. Almost all of these requests have no real basis and will give little or no social or economic benefit to anyone, save for a few lucky individuals.
This is excluding the many verbal requests for me to buy radios, give PMV fares, lunch or dinner money, drinking money or money for hospital fees, funeral money or some other item I am "required" to pay for because I am running for elections. I have even had many individuals tell me in no uncertain terms that if I wanted to be an MP, I must pay (bribe) the voter because that "is the way we do things around here".
Even some so-called "born again" Christians and Pastors facilitate this mentality. Worse still, I now have people coming to me with long lists of people who have supposedly voted for me and to whom I must now be indebted and give priority to simply because they voted for me. I thought this was a secret ballot where free elections will be held. The things that trouble me about this brand of "PNG Democracy" are many, but two issues immediately come to my mind, which I think all Papua New Guineans who love this country must
consider.
The first one is this: are we voting for all these MPs to serve our personal interests or to work for the common good? What are we really "giving" these MPs? Do we think we are making them instant millionaires? Is this why we must also share in the spoils? What is the role of the MPs anyway? Is it to bring
home the bacon so we can all cut it up? Say the ESP provincial Budget is K40 million; should we simply buy radios for all the voters, give them another K50 each and forget about our roads, schools, hospitals, and public service and then wait around for the next budget? The next question is: how did all this start? Or more to the point, who started this? Are our MPs corrupt, or is our society corrupt? If our MPs are corrupt, where did they come from? Did they fall to earth from outer space, or did they come out from society?
After my experience, I am not surprised one little bit about why our MPs disappear to Port Moresby and never return. I have witnessed how disgusting our "morally upright" voters can be at my local MP’s home. His wife and children stand at the kitchen all day and night churning out pots of rice and tinned fish to feed the electorate. At one stage, I could not take it any more and angrily chastised those lazy ...forgive me, good voters” for this conduct.
My MP bolted when I did so, but I could see the relief on his wife’s face. Sadly, that is exactly what the electorate desires of their elected representatives in PNG. I am certain if I fronted up at the home of another East Sepik MP, I’d find the same going on.
I believe in hard work and sweat to get my bread and butter and I know therein lies the problem with my country. Most of us are simply content to sit around under the shade of a tree and wait for the government or the local MP to give us some money so that we can put food on the table.
Some others prefer to rob the few of us hard-workers who till the land for sustenance, either through fees or at the point of a gun or other device. I have never campaigned dirty against another candidate, including the sitting MP and should I lose, I would be greatly relieved not to have to deal with the many parasites that exist in our society.
Finally, in all fairness to those voters who did vote with their heart, and not because of the swelling of their pockets, may I suggest to the new government the following measures to reduce the effect of our corrupt society on our system of government.
• Do away completely with the RAP, EDF, or whatever it is called. MPs should not be regarded as a pipeline to never ending supplies of cash and goodies. This system fosters the cargo cult mentality and breeds laziness in our people. We need to do PNG a favour and get all those lazy members of our society back to work.
• Legislate so that any MP or intending candidate (or their associates) who give money, food, clothing, accommodation, or other inducement, no matter how small, is guilty of an offence punishable by dismissal from office or in the case of elections, being ineligible to contest. This way we protect the MP and the candidate from the corrupt voters and we protect the voters from themselves. This will also have the added benefit of evening out the playing field for all candidates. We cannot continue to allow this situation of rich
people with money kowtowing to the whims of corrupt voters and destroying our collective ability to vote for genuine leadership.
