Posted by PNG today
Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape says the 22 reserved seats for women is not a fair and level playing field for women to enter politics in PNG, hence his government will not pursue it.
Speaking at the first of its kind two-day PNG Political Parties and Women in Political Leadership Forum in Port Moresby today, the Prime Minister says he will not support the notion of the 22 reserved seats because he personally believes it is a downgrading avenue for women to enter Parliament.
Marape says he is a believer of women as equal to men and says the idea of the 22 reserved seats portrays that women are not equal.
Instead, the Prime Minister further believes women can win elections on their own merits if the environment of contest is a fair place.
Therefore, Mr Marape says his government will push for a cleanup in the entire electoral process to give both men and women a conducive environment to allow for a free and fair election environment so that women can feel free to contest.
He says for the next two years his government will clean the process of campaigning, voting and counting.
And a major part of achieving this, will be to work on electronic voting or the bio-metric system which promotes one person one vote.
He says PNG has seen failure in the electoral process in the past elections and his government is fully committed to putting resources into tidying this up, so that the environment is encouraging for women to contest.
Go to this link for more: https://news.pngfacts.com/2019/11/no-reserve-seats-for-women-png-pm.html?fbclid=IwAR2eD4C3oVgi9YmWGPcKCs_huGfbcneaz4d_mUBLg8XcdAkkKBtmzFRmSQg
Interesting comments from PM Marape.
ReplyDeleteI guess he is at the liberty to make such brash comments as he has 3 terms of parliament experience to make such insensitive comments.
His grand idea of making PNG a rich, black christian nation has gotten the better of him, and I wonder if his government will 'really' and 'truly' clean up PNG's political system - making it free, fair and safe for women?