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PAPUA NEW GUINEA FAILS AT WORLD FREEDOM RANKINGS

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by FREEDOM HOUSE   The Political Rights rating declined from 3 to 4 due to Prime Minister Peter O’Neill’s increasingly autocratic leadership style, including his disbanding of an anticorruption task force after he became subject of a corruption investigation. Overview:  In January 2014, Prime Minister Peter O’Neill and other lawmakers faced allegations of wrongdoing involving $28 million in government fees paid to a private law firm. Taskforce Sweep, O’Neill’s special anticorruption investigation body, first concluded the allegations were unfounded, but later said new evidence supported an arrest warrant for O’Neill. Following this development, O’Neill declared Taskforce Sweep to be politically compromised and disbanded the group in June, putting the police in charge of the investigation. Acting Police Commissioner Geoffrey Vaki was arrested soon afterward by fraud investigators for interfering with the course of justice in relation to the case against O’Neil