10 tricks that PNG politicians often use to manipulate and deceive Christians.

By MISHA MUL

I started writing this article awhile back but finished it after reading about how politicians are making so much noise about the american Bible.  I believe most of these politicians are not genuine but trying to make the right kind of noise during this event to get Christians to support them in 2017.  

Today in PNG there are many con artist politicians who pretend to be trupla pasin Christians.  They manipulate and trick the real Christians into voting them.  As Christians we are vulnerable to this trickery because we are usually taught from early age to be God fearing, passive, obedient and to respect others.   If we respond as expected and become peaceful, trusting personalities, it can be easy for others to trick and manipulate us.  

Con artist politicians know that if they get Christians on their side, they'll get many more votes and more easily reach fame and fortune.   

As Christians, most of us would want to vote candidates who best share our Christian values.   Con artist politicians understand this.  Thats why those who have selfish or other evil intentions for seeking public office use many tricks purposely to fool Christians.   

Some con artist politicians are brilliant at this manipulation.  They know the right things to say and skilled in connecting emotionally with Christian audiences at public occasions.  

In this article I will describe 10 tricks commonly used by con artist politicians to get Christians to vote for some of the most immoral, unethical people in PNG.

Trick no. 1 - Visually align yourself with Jesus and Holy Cross in campaign posters.   In the mid 1990s, Hela governor Anderson Agiru actively manipulated Christians into voting for him by spreading campaign posters that showed a photo of Jesus just behind and above his own face.  Many of his constitutuents were illiterate from remote areas.  They saw the posters,  thought it meant that Jesus Christ had personally approved Mr Agiru and voted him.   We now know Mr Agiru is one of the biggest politician thiefs and also very cunning.  The disappearance of hundreds of millions of kina in oil royalties over the years, combined with Agiru's high living style, including frequent gambling trips to Cairns, is proof enough that Christians made a giant mistake by voting for this man.

Trick no. 2 - Give money to local churches and their pastors as a kind of legal bribery.  The con artist politicians know that the pastors will turn around and promote them to their congregation.  Once church leaders accept money from politicians, they become  reluctant to criticise.   PM Peter O'Neill has frequently used this trick and so does Morobe Governor Kelly Naru.  Mr Naru is brilliant at attracting Christian votes.  He pays money to churches and their pastors and also follows Trick no 1 but in a very sneaky way.  For his campaign posters, Mr Naru posed so that you could his eyes were looking up towards heaven.  He must have had dozens of photos made so that he could pick out the perfect shot to use.  It works very well by making Mr Naru look pious and God fearing, whether or not that is actually true.  His adulterous relations, which keep coming up on the social media, suggests that in real life he is not so God fearing.       

Trick no. 3 - make yourself conspicuous as a church goer and make friends with respected local church leaders.   Con artist candidates will make sure they're seen in church the moment serious allegations of corruption surface, but sometimes pay occasional visits to cover up their secret life.  MP David Arore, who is a heavy drinker, partier and womanizer and very corrupt with stealing money at the provincial level, recently was seen in a video on the internet singing a hymn in church, pretending to be God fearing.   There is lots of evidence to say he doesn't fear God's wrath at all.

Trick no. 4 - Frequently refer to God in speeches and conversation.   By constantly referring to God and scripture, these con artist politicians convince many Christians that they are God fearing.  Behind the scenes they steal public funds at every chance, drink until they fall over or get into fights, and seek new ladies every night.  Neither are they God fearing nor do they even believe in God, otherwise how could they act so ungodly and without concern.  Yet even the worse of the lot will get many Christian votes at election time if they they are always speaking to the public about Jesus or acting like they're the experts on how to live a proper Christian life.  

A famous historic example of all this was Father Robert Lack, former WHP MP.   Father Lak, as a priest, attracted so many Christian votes.  Behind the scenes he played with prostitutes until he finally got AIDS and died.  When Father Lak's secret life was revealed, there was much embarrassment amongst churches and Christians of all denominations who had strongly supported him and given their votes for years.  They had all been tricked.  

Trick no. 5 - Tell your constituents you changed your ways and now live Christian life.

The sneakiest politicians manipulate our Christian tendency for forgiveness.  They ask for forgiveness.  Feeling sorry, we forgive and vote them again.  They probably laugh at us behind our backs.  

Trick no. 6 - Strongly display yourself in public in such a way that makes Christian voters believe that you are one with God.  Our PM, Peter O'Neill, is a genius at this truly. Thats why he gets so many votes and support from Christians.  In the past he has arranged photo opportunities showing him signing Bibles and giving them away.  This coming Monday, he will personally welcome the King James Bible donation from overseas before all the cameras.  To see the PM in particular being the lead person to welcome a Bible is either funny or sad, depending on how you look at it.  Mr O'Neill is well documented for continual lying and other unethical behaviour, including backroom adultery.  He has helped hide his trupela pasin by manipulating Christians.  Most famous was when he made himself head of the Gaming Commission soon after becoming PM. He stopped granting licenses for pokies, which made Christians and churches overjoyed. What Christians didn't realise at the time was that Peter O'Neill was manipulating them.  Behind closed doors he and 2 white friends used the ban on new licenses to give themselves full control over PNG pokies which run in their pokies parlours.  It was a brilliant manipulation of Christians to support him.

Trick no. 7 - Manipulate Christian minds so they make wantok issue more important than Christian values when deciding who to vote for.  Very commonly seen in our towns.  Actually the con artist politician hardly has to do this manipulation as many Christians will still vote for an imperfect wantok instead of a better person from some other province.  This indicates that most of us who call ourselves Christian have not matured the development of our soul to follow God.  Are you one of those Christians who vote for wantoks even if there are lots of stories that they are living an unchristian life?

Trick no. 8 - Appeal to Christians to make cargo more important than Christian values when deciding who to vote for.   Same as the last trick, but this one works everywhere in PNG.  The con artist politician tricks by appealing to greed.   Most Christians today are smart enough not to vote for a candidate who throws out beer and money to buy votes.  Unfortunately it is very common for Christians to be tricked by the smarter con artist politicians who build new roads, schools, aid posts and other facilities to trick Christians into voting for them.  Behind the scenes they are pocketing government money on all these projects.  Many put as little money and careful planning into building the infrastructure which means it quickly falls apart.  It doesn't matter, too many Christians will vote for these politicians.   Our Prime Minister is excellent at using this trick to attract Christian votes.  

MPs Justin Tkatchenko and Powes Parkop also have exceptional talents in this area.   You can tell that they have succeeded in tricking whenever you hear many Christians promoting any politician who has brought a lot of development to the area even but also have clouds of unethical behaviour over their head.   These Christians have been completely manipulated by the con artist politicians because they have forgotten that it is not Christlike to make material items more important than living the straight life.  Wonder how Jesus Himself reacts when he sees his flock voting for politicians providing cargo in the name of development even though it is becoming clear that money is being stolen from those projects.

Trick no. 9 - Hide your sinful living by partying and extravagant living where your voters won't see you.   Living a double life in 2 different places is a neat trick because all the voters probably see is clean living by the politician.  So many of our MPs quickly move to Moresby as soon as they get elected so Christians back home can't see what they're doing.  Nowdays as voters become smarter, con artist politicians hide their unchristian ways by partying behind closed doors in private Moresby clubs or flying to Cairns to live the sinful life.  IF evil living is not starring at us in the face, we Christians will tend to vote for a candidate because of something else about them.   Con artist politicians know that very well and manipulate us.   Former MP Arthur Somare had a secret arrangement with staff who would find ahead of time a new woman for him to sleep with each night when he was traveling.  Christian voters back in Angoram were ignorant of this and kept voting him back into power.

Trick no. 10 - Interact informally with Christians, present yourself as being a friendly, nice guy. I am told that the champion of this trick was the former Madang MP Peter Yama, a very congenial and nice acting fellow, always happy to give you a little present. If you didn't know all the public money stealing he was doing, you would think he was a genuine Christian, kind, caring and helpful.

Those who pride ourselves as serious and committed Christians bear responsibility for making sure that our vote doesn't go to those who reject the teachings of Jesus Christ. The problem is that we say that then find out that we actually voted for another con artist.

We fall easy victim to con artist politician trickery because we put too much emphasis on what our leaders say and not enough on what they do. We say that their private life is their business. This is another way of Christians saying that it is ok for our leaders to be sinful as long they aren't seen or caught doing it. In other countries voters poke into the private lives of politicians, why are we so fearful in PNG that we don't demand to know everything about the life of the person we are giving power to be our leader?

We also need to look back into time, when the candidate wasn't even thinking about running for MP and judge what their actions were then. We should know by now that the smartest con artist politicians will do anything near election time to convince Christians to vote for them. We should evaluate how much they sacrificed for the community, and to what extent they involved themselves in church activities years before they decided to run for office. Thats how we can discover trupla pasin.

If all Christians did more investigating before voting, it would be much harder for the con artist politicians to so easily trick us as they do now. This would result in the PNG Christian vote electing fewer corrupt leaders.

Please share any examples you know of where politicians have successfully been able to manipulate or trick Christians in PNG to blindly support them. My stories come from the internet and from people who shared inside stories. However there are many more examples, probably better than these examples. Please share your ideas on how you think we can end the problem of Christian voters being tricked into supporting con artist politicians.