Australia will be going to the polls in 5 weeks time and to kick off the election campaign there was a leaders debate last night where John Howard and Kevin Rudd debated on the policies of their parties.
For those who watched this debate, wouldn't you all agree that if only our leaders could openly come before the poeple of Papua New Guinea before elections and debate thier policies before being elected, perhaps we would all know what they stand for and whether they have the heart for the people of Papua New Guinea? None of our leaders have been able to effectively do that in the past years that we have conducted elections.What we have in PNG is rallies where they stand before us and give us false promises and we, the poeple, are never given the chance to ask them questions. There are some who are carried around like kings and there are others who have lunatics convoying around the place in vehicles ...one would think that they are going to war.
I am not saying that we should copy Australia, but that our leaders should work for our votes by going right down to the grass root level and meet and talk with everyday Papua New Guineans, whether working class, business class or even the villager. We should be able to tell that if they get elected into power, what impact will their policies have on each of us individually and on our families. How many of us were able to at least have some idea on the impact that a certain party's policy would have on our tax, or health system or even education system or most importantly the economy of our country in the last election campaign? Our leaders are not able to do this for us and most importantly most of our voters are not fully aware of of this.
The majority of our voters are in the rural areas and these are the poeple that we should be effectively eduating on how to choose the right leader. These are the very people that are easily misled by our pollies.A majority of our poeple vote because they know the candidate and because the candidate bought and donated such and such for them.
All our pollies have to do is flash some cash here and there and they're in.
Then again what are policies when in PNG it is not "what you know" that will get you in the 'Haus Tambaran' but "who you know".
I totally agree with you, Wantok.
Somare did that prior to the 2002 Election by going on EMTV and NA gained popularity. The question of who is paying the media costs is a question.
The reason why our leaders don't do as you suggest is that the majority of voters want nothing more than cargo in exchange for votes. They could care less about anything else.
Gutpela tingting bilong yu tasol mipela ol PNG ya, we are bunch of short sighted; selfish; greedy; careless; human beings who just think about today and have no thought for the future. They can't even carefully scrutinise each election contestants before puting pen to paper. They don't look at their family or educational or professionalism background but because they give them a K50.00 or so they just vote for them.
Thats why half the time they vote in corrupt, unprofessional, inexperience, polygamist leaders who just go into the haus tambarran to defile the whole process. Maybe that is the reason why we are not progressing forward because of their sins as leaders of the nation is causing the blockage. Or even more, we need to change the haus tambarran name and style to some modern name or style. I am not a Sepik but from what I heard is that haus tambarran is the haus of Spirits. The evil spirits in the haus tambarran is manifesting in the leaders who are elected into the haus.
Most of you will agree with me that most clergyman or very good christians have given up their faith and went back into the world doing the worldly things.
