Papua New Guinea’s 2022 Redistricting Part 1: A Trojan Horse?

Abstract

With considerable fanfare, Papua New Guinea (PNG) entered the 2022 National General Election (NGE) with seven new electorates and eight newly defined electorates.1 This was the first time since 1977 that the redistricting provisions foreseen in the Constitution and the Organic Law on National and Local-level Government Elections led to redrawing of open electorates. The new electorates and six more approved for creation ahead of the 2027 NGE were presented as addressing the malapportionment issues stemming from demographic shifts and an electoral map that had remained ostensibly static for 45 years.2 The reform left much to be desired, creating some new electorates with populations well above or well below legislatively prescribed quotas. There was more to this reform than is readily apparent. On 22 March 2022, the National Parliament of Papua New Guinea accepted the 2021 Electoral Boundaries Commission (EBC) report, recommendations and maps, and it turns out this act did much more than establishing 13 new electorates. The report included — without comment — a new set of electorate maps for the 96 proposed open electorates, redrawing open electorate boundaries in nearly every province. Apart from this lack of transparency, another issue is that the new maps are drawn from incompatible sources, creating conflicting open electorate boundaries and some open electorates that are inconsistent with provincial boundaries. This broader redistricting was neither discussed in the EBC report nor debated in parliament. The well-advertised creation of the new electorates concealed much more far-reaching changes.