The Strategy That Virtually Guarantees An Overwhelming PNC Victory In the 2017 Elections (Part 3)

by WALI DAVID

In the 2 parts of this article already published, I have described the 3 main elements of a grand strategy that can keep Peter O’Neill and the Peoples National Congress (PNC) party in power almost indefinitely.   

What has been discussed so far are the broad components of the strategy to be applied across the board in PNG.   This last section describes very specific strategies that could be used on a case-by-case basis, depending on who the candidate is, what their local popularity is, and what the electorate is composed of.  


GRAND STRATEGY 4 - CUSTOM MANIPULATIONS FOR A FEW SELECTED CANDIDATES AND DISTRICTS TO ENHANCE PNC CANDIDATE ELECTIBILITY

The following strategies should not be generally applied but directed at selected districts or regional seats.   

1… Destroy non PNC MPs before the election.   This is already well in process, although sometimes the strategy will fail.   Corrupt activities of Prominent Opposition Leaders Don Polye and Belden Namah are already the subject of prosecutions, although Namah has prevailed in court at least for now.  Non-PNG MP Wera Mori has now had evidence presented against him by PNC MP Francis Awesa for mis-use of K54 million of highway money.   The only non-PNC MP for Western Province, Governor Ati Tobiro was convicted of embezzlement and removed from office by evidence submitted by the 2 PNC MPs for Western Province.    The Opposition could follow the same strategy but are hopelessly outgunned, not having the resources that being in government automatically provides.   This strategy overall involves using the ombudsman, the police, and criminal courts to pull non-PNC MPs out of office prior to the 2017 election.  

2… Manipulate voter rolls in rural areas where candidates are supported on a tribal basis.   All that the corrupt 2012 voter roll manipulation achieved was to anger prominent public figures who discovered their names had disappeared, and went to the press to complain.  The result was a minor national uproar amongst the educated elite that almost caused postponement of the 2012 election.   

A much more productive strategy is to manipulate the voter rolls only in rural electorates where people tend to vote loyally for their own tribesman candidates.  

There are two productive mechanisms to manipulate the electoral rolls to favour the PNC candidate.  One is by selectively removing a number of names of voters who belong to competing tribes.  The second is by adding ghost names to the electoral rolls of the tribes whose members would naturally vote for PNC.   Either technique serves to tip the balance of votes in favour of those candidates whose loyal voters all remain on the electoral rolls, with possible addition of ghost names.  

Peter O’Neill’s political appointment of a loyal Electoral Commissioner that he can control and  the added, active involvement of Isaac Lupari, the Prime Ministers’ Chief Secretary ensures that the government can have access to the electoral rolls and find ways to manipulate the rolls just like what happened in 2012.   

3… Encourage candidates who preach against corruption or for honest governance to contest.  To a point, the more candidates there are, the easier it is for a PNC candidate to win the election.    More university students and more NGO and academic types are likely to contest the 2017 election.  More candidates usually mean fewer votes separating each candidate at vote counting time.   This makes it relatively easier to rig specific district electorate voting with enough added/removed votes to shift the winner to PNC.   The anti-corruption candidates will never have the financial or other resources to reach enough people strongly enough to attract enough votes to win.  That is why their contesting the 2017 election ultimately will help more PNC MPs running for re-election to remain in power.     

It should be noted that too many candidates contesting a seat can cause an area of trouble for the ruling party.   It increases the risk that even chance occurrences outside the control of the vote manipulators that could result in natural shifts of votes, could swing things enough to saboutage the efforts to rig the vote.  

Basically, a vote rigger wants a situation where changing 500 up to 1 or 2 thousand votes will be enough to change the outcome of an election to their favour.   Too many candidates means that a shift of maybe only 100 votes could change the outcome of the election, and natural shifts could cancel out the vote rigging manipulations with no forewarning.    

The Electoral Commission, now under firm control of the government, has smartly raised the nomination fee to the extent that ensures that there will not be too many candidates contesting in any electorate.   That solves the problem of random vote shifts being enough to destroy the intent of a specific vote rigging exercise.  

4… Secretly fund alternative independent candidates in exchange for a commitment to declare themselves for PNC should they win.  This strategy of secretly gaining the loyalty of independent candidates would be ideal in electorates where PNC is proving to be unpopular, such as in the island region or maybe Momase.    The strategy of secretly buying an independent candidates loyalty works well because backroom bribes to candidates are very hard to detect.   Even O’Neill hating boycotting university student candidates would probably succumb to temptation and take the bribe.    

5… Increase the distance between polling place and counting place, allowing greater opportunity for removal of genuine ballots and insertion of counterfeit ballots.   The specific frauds involve removing ballots marked with opposing candidates, as well as bringing in counterfeit ballots printed in PNG or overseas which are then marked with the candidate of choice, then stuffed into ballot boxes mid-way between the polling place and the counting place.  The longer the distance between polling place and vote counting place, the more opportunity to bribe those attending the ballots to look the other way.   Thus, elections conducted in Hela electorates could be brought to Mt Hagen for counting in the name of security.  In actuality, the purpose would be to provide greater opportunity to corrupt the vote without detection.  

6… Get cronies appointed as returning Electoral Officers or bribe them to allow vote rigging.   The fact that the government is so overwhelmingly dominated by the one political party, the People’s National Congress, makes it much easier for the government to become a pawn of that party, which is exactly what is happening in PNG today.   The Electoral Commission is clearly politicized and that is why there has been a rush by MPs to bribe and corrupt behind closed doors the Electoral Commissioner Chief Parilias Gamato, whose connections to Peter O’Neill have successfully been kept obscure by the government.   

Former PM Paias Wingti, who himself has been a major contributer to corruption (see information presented in http://www.pngblogs.com/2015/09/the-germination-and-spread-of.html), came out swinging in the Post Courier yesterday by accusing other MPs and Ministers of the above corruptions, including the specific strategy of having District Administrators and District Managers being appointed as returning officers for their electorates.    There is such a strong movement behind the scenes to achieve this objective because the District Administrators and District Managers are in the best position to become the District Warlords for PNC, having a huge influence on ensuring that DSIP/PSIP/LLGSIP funds are used as much as possible to favour the election campaigns of PNC candidates and incumbent MPs.   


CONCLUSIONS

Electoral Commission Chief Gamato would not reply to former PM Wingti’s specific allegations concerning corruption in the Electoral Commission and the politicizing of electoral commission returning officers.   Also former PM Wingti himself would not name names nor make a formal complaint to the police about these allegations.   The silence is more likely because the allegations are correct but being that the Western Highlands Governor is part of the Peter O’Neill government, he dares not rock the boat too much.  However, as a member of the People’s Democratic Movement party (PDM) he has apparently become aware of the grip that PNC now has on the government as well as on campaign finances for the upcoming election.    Even PDM will be outgunned by PNC with Wingti being possibly the only PDM MP surviving the 2017 election.  

The overall conclusion after seeing all the measures being put in place to ensure that the 2017 election goes strongly towards PNC candidates is that unless you are a wealthy, highly respected long time resident in the electorate in which you run, you don’t have a chance in hell of getting elected unless you run under the PNC banner in 2017.    

Nothing you as a candidate preaches to your people about the need for good governance, the dangers of widespread corruption, or the growing dictatorship of the current Prime Minister will attract enough votes to overcome the combined effects of all the strategies available to PNC that have been described in these 3 articles on the subject.   If you are running in a district that has mostly rural and if the incumbent PNC MP has done a reasonable job creating new infrastructure in a way that reverses the trends of many years, you have a chance of winning only if hell freezes over.  

You will be competing against a PNC candidate whose campaign is are likely being paid for, directly or indirectly, by public funding, channeled through DSIP, PSIP, or LLGSIP mechanisms.    That candidate can easily be given side money taken from the Gaming Commission revenue, from State Owned Enterprises, or a variety of other government sources that can be secured if necessary to satisfy these needs.    Where will you get enough money to compete against that?   Rural voters want results up front these days.  How will you deliver and what will you deliver that can outcompete the PNC incumbent MP?   

The more candidates like yourself who run against the PNC candidate, the more the vote will be split and the easier it becomes to do some manipulating of the voter rolls or ballots to increase the chances that the PNC candidate will win.

If you end up losing, how will you pay for the professional legal advice needed to actually win in court with your election claim?    How knowledgeable are you about the kind of evidence likely to be required and accepted in a court of law to win your claim?    How will you document any voter fraud?   How will you be able to collect concrete evidence, as opposed to collecting testimony from witnesses who the judge knows could have been bribed by you to lie on your behalf?  

The government candidate, ie the PNC incumbent MP, has all the power on their side to win against you in court.   

What especially helps the government candidates is the naivety of most who contest elections in PNG.  Most candidates have no clue at all how popular they are within the electorate. They have no sound strategy for becoming better known.  They have an almost childish belief that they don’t need money, only faith, and will win.   None of this ever proves to be the case.   The hard nosed strategic moves that the current government seems to be planning will easily wipe the naïve candidates off the election map.  

Even well known candidates running against PNC MPs will have a difficult challenge considering the amount of money the PNC candidate will have access too.  Remember, we are talking about rural electorates not urban ones.   Money talks, like it or not.   Infrastructure built by the incumbent carries a powerful message that makes any promises you as a candidate make look empty by comparison.  

The political parties such as Pangu, National Alliance, and PPP have no chance whatsoever in being able to prevail against the giant war chest of public monies that PNC can tap into via the government, and funneled down to the districts using DSIP, PSIP and LLGSIP financial vehicles.   Every one of their candidates can be badly outspent.   Should a candidate from one of these minor parties be seen as a serious challenger to a PNC candidate, various vote rigging tools are available.  

During the student boycotts, many intellectuals worried that if the citizens of Papua New Guinea did not rise up and join with the students, that all would be lost and PNG would inherit Peter O’Neill as our Prime Minister for a lifetime.  

The people remained seated, the students were defeated, and Peter O’Neill has since moved to ensure that never again will be such a threat like that by the people of PNG to his power.   A nationwide strike would have been a more powerful way to defeat the Prime Minister than the upcoming 2017 election.  Quite possibly our Prime Minister knew all along that if only he could survive the civil strife and Vote of No Confidence, the 2017 election would be a piece of cake and very easy to win.   

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