Marape’s rise to power was made possible due to the need for change and the opportunity for like–minded leaders to get behind him. This peaceful political change is a plus for the country’s democracy.
By BONIFACE KAIYO - PNG Attitude
PORT MORESBY -Clearly, many factors are involved to bring about a palace coup, which is defined as a non-violent coup d'état carried out by people in positions of authority who themselves are part of the ruling regime.
James Marape’s rise to power was made possible due to the conditions amenable to political change that prevailed at the time he won office, an act he justified in highbrow terms designed to appeal to the emotions and patriotism of the public.
A threatened no confidence vote in Peter O’Neill was set to dethrone both him and his People’s National Congress. But O’Neill opted to resign as prime minister as the numbers against him grew.
For 50 days effective government was impossible. The legitimacy of the state was at stake.
So parliament voted for Marape with a thumping majority, and permitted a peaceful, evolutionary and civilised change of government in Papua New Guinea.
Take-away 1: Rise of Marape to replace O’Neill was a long overdue political change
The demise of O’Neill affirms that leaders come and go and underpins the view that to change the man at the top may be an effective way of changing government policy.
There were other kinds of political action on the table, ranging from waiting for the next election in 2022 to a fully-fledged coup d’etat. But the chosen method was a palace coup, an outcome achieved with minimum political casualties.
The danger of the past few weeks was that if the power vacuum was mismanaged the palace coup had the potential to develop into much more than the replacement of one set of leaders by another. There could have been more serious consequences.
Take-away 2: Pangu Pati has re-emerged after a long time in obscurity
Pangu Pati’s ‘Take Back PNG’ slogan may be an overstatement but it underpinned a deliberate effort to cause a change in the government direction and policies.
Marape has already taken the first step in winning leadership and appointing a new ministry. The second step is to target government policy which will form the platform and provide the agency of political change under his watch.
He can take the hint or cue from the historical experiences of the United States and the United Kingdom, amongst many other examples.
In both the post-World War II US New Deal and the program of the UK Labour Party, government economic and social policies resulted in far-reaching changes in the functioning of the political system.
In PNG, in the period around independence in 1975, Pangu Pati captured the imagination of a nation emerging from the Stone Age. The country’s leading vehicle of political culture has now re-emerged after a long time in obscurity.
Pangu Pati is now in a position to validate the new prime minister’s call for like–minded leaders to render change with him and make PNG the “richest black Christian nation on earth”.
The need for major policy change after the National Alliance and People’s National Congress years is summarised in Governor Gary Juffa’s original catch-cry adopted by Marape to ‘Take Back PNG’.
It addresses two factors. Firstly, Marape is responding to widespread pressures and demands that, if not satisfied by the system, may intensify and lead to violent political action.
Second, Marape is responding to the need to rein in unworkable policies of the previous regime and to reformat political, social, and economic goals to benefit all and not just a single class, an elite and the political leadership itself.
That said, many questions remain as to the effects of this dramatic political change for the country.
Take-away 3: Constitution enabled MPs to manage political change without violence
It took 40 years to find out, and the hard yards of those intervening years were often challenging for a nation with no prior national civilisation, but the guns, steel and medicine of Western Christian civilisation that blessed, or cursed, our shores meant the opportunity was there to make democracy, tolerance and the rule of law deliver for our people.
These values and tenets became embedded in PNG’s political system through the Constitution. This is a living document that has enabled our MPs to manage the need for political change without violence and bloodshed. This is a great achievement.
In other systems, change is often accomplished only through coups d’etat, revolution and other forms of internal warfare that invoke violence, death and loss of property.
Clearly Marape’s rise to power was made possible due to the need for change and the opportunity for like–minded leaders to get behind him and make it possible.
And now the first step has been taken and the political change that has occurred is a plus for the country’s democracy.
And, if it was indeed 50 days of instability, a palace coup and ‘mob rule without trial’, it was part and parcel of a process that permitted the peaceful and evolutionary development of PNG as a civilised society.
Papua New Guinea now has a chance to become the richest black Christian nation on earth.
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