National Parliament of Papua New Guinea

The National Parliament of Papua New Guinea is the unicameral national legislature in Papua New Guinea. It was created in 1964 as the House of Assembly of Papua and New Guinea but gained its current name after the nation was granted independence in 1975.

National Parliament of Papua New Guinea
10th Parliament
Type
Type
Term limits
5 years
History
Founded1964
Leadership
Job Pomat
since 2 August 2017
Structure
Seats111 (89 open electorates and 22 provincial electorates)
Political groups
Government

Opposition

Crossbench

  •      United Resources (12)
  •      Unaffiliated (7)
  •      Independent (2)
Elections
Instant-runoff voting
Last election
24 June 2017 - 8 July 2017
Meeting place
National Parliament House, Port Moresby
Website
www.parliament.gov.pg
Papua New Guinea
This article is part of a series on the
politics and government of
Papua New Guinea

The 111 members of parliament serve five-year terms, 89 of whom are chosen from single-member "open" electorates, which are sometimes referred to as "seats" but are officially known as constituencies. The remaining 22 are chosen from single-member provincial electorates: the 20 provinces, the autonomous province of Bougainville (North Solomons), and the National Capital District. Each provincial member becomes governor of their province unless they take a ministerial position, in which case the governorship passes to an open member of the province.[1]

From 1964 until 1977 an Optional Preferential Voting System was used. The first past the post system was used from 1977 until 2002. Electoral reforms introduced by former Prime Minister Mekere Morauta introduced Limited Preferential Voting, in which voters numbered three preferred candidates. LPV was first used nationally in the 2007 election.[2]

As in other Commonwealth realms, the party or coalition with the most seats in the parliament is invited by the Governor-General to form a government, and its leader subsequently becomes Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea. The Prime Minister then appoints his cabinet from fellow parliament members. Members of parliament are seated in a similar manner to other Westminster system parliaments, but use chairs instead of benches.

Papua New Guinea has a fractious political culture, and no party in the history of parliament has yet won a majority.[1] Therefore, negotiations between parties have always been necessary to form governments. New governments are protected from votes of no confidence during their first 18 months and during the last 12 months before a national election. More recently, in a move aimed at further minimizing no-confidence motions, then-Prime Minister Mekere Morauta introduced changes that prevented members of the government from voting in favour of such a motion.

All citizens over the age of 18 may vote, although voting is not compulsory.[3]

Latest election
Main article: 2017 Papua New Guinean general election
Party First preference votes % Seats +/–
People's National Congress Party1,039,94013.1628
National Alliance Party484,3006.1315
Triumph Heritage Empowerment Rural Party323,9514.104
Pangu Party322,0494.089
United Resources Party310,2823.9310
People's Progress Party273,8393.465
Papua New Guinea Party216,5272.745
PNG National Party186,2792.363
People's Party138,3951.752
Social Democratic Party129,2661.642
People's Labour Party127,9891.622
Grassroots United Front Party124,2231.570
United Party111,7861.411
PNG One Nation Party103,5151.311
Christian Democratic Party100,7311.271
People's Democratic Movement100,5471.271
Coalition for Reform Party99,0111.251
People's Movement for Change Party74,7470.951
People's Action Party70,3650.890
Trust PNG Party66,5130.840
New Generation Party65,6620.830
Melanesian Alliance Party63,7370.811
PNG Country Party53,8230.681
Model Nation Party49,6410.630
PNG Youths Party41,0170.520
Our Development Party35,1860.451
PNG Socialist Party34,7910.440
PNG Constitutional Democratic Party28,7020.360
Papua New Guinea First Party28,3230.360
Paradise Kingdom Party23,2390.290
SOM Pioneer Party22,8130.290
Nation's Interest Party20,4190.260
Melanesian Liberal Party16,4290.211
People’s Freedom Party14,4360.180
PNG Destiny Party7,4950.090
PNG Greens Party7,2910.090
Stars Alliance Party6,5020.080
Mapai Levites Party6,3850.080
National Conservative Party2,7730.040
Wantok In Godly Services Party2,4350.030
People’s Resources Awareness Party4960.010
Republican Party1010.000
Independents2,967,06737.5414
Unavailable[lower-alpha 1]––2–
Invalid/blank votes145,760–––
Total8,048,7781001110
Registered voters/turnout––
Source: Development Policy Centre
gollark: It wouldn't work, I think.
gollark: And on potatOS it should be possible to actually transfer lööps to some sort of Potato Cloud to escape shutdown.
gollark: You can terminate them but they'll run in the background.
gollark: If it works well enough potatOS could gain native `lööp` support though.
gollark: Isn't CC/Lua's anything-but-ascii support horrible?

See also

Notes
  1. These results omit the figures for Central Bougainville (where a recount took place) and Henganofi

References
  1. "About Our Parliament". National Parliament of Papua New Guinea.
  2. "Papua New Guinea National Elections 2012: Final Report". Commonwealth of Nations. 13 September 2012. Retrieved 19 May 2015.
  3. "Enrolment Awareness". Electoral Commission of Papua New Guinea.
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