Danielle Romanes is an intern with the Lowy Institute's Myer Foundation Melanesia Program.
PNG's constitutional crisis abated over Christmas but it's far from over. Here's what you might have missed over the break:
- Grand Chief Sir Michael Somare hasn't given up on his claim to power, and he recently appointed Anderson Agiru as his new deputy prime minister. Agiru is Governor of resource-rich Southern Highlands province, which is host to the PNG LNG project and tends to be a critical base of political support. Word has it Somare himself won't be standing again for office come elections this year, which will probably improve his party's (The National Alliance) prospects of getting back in.
- Peter O'Neill has the de facto allegiance or neutrality of the public service, Police Commissioner, Governor-General, Catholic Church and Army. Legally or not, he is running the country. His Government has passed PNG's largest ever budget, enacted legislation for a national sovereign wealth fund and capped the age of PMs at 72, but disappointingly failed to push through a critical constitutional amendment allowing reserved electoral seats for women. Parliament will be back in session on 17 January, when the bill will hopefully get another reading.
- O'Neill controversially deported NZ businessman, restaurant operator and Somare supporter Graham Osborne for alleged meddling in local politics (read: managing the restaurant at Ela Beach Hotel, where Somare & co. camped out during December's political wrangle). Both the logic and legality of O'Neill's move is unclear, and the deportation has been questioned by the Opposition and the local business community alike.
- PNG's love-hate relationship with its resource wealth took a turn for the worse as disgruntled landowners occupied major mining projects around the country, and the Supreme Court dismissed the appeal of 1084 landowners for a permanent injunction against the Chinese MCC's plan to dump tailings from Ramu Nickel mine into Basamuk Bay. In a 2-1 decision, the dissenting judge found a reasonable likelihood of environmental catastrophe, while her colleagues found that constitutional directives against environmental damage were non-justiciable. After years of delay, Ramu — China's largest greenfield mining investment abroad — will soon begin production and will be operating at peak capacity by mid-2013. Keep an eye out for the Lowy Institute's research on China's controversial flagship investment in the Pacific, out early this year.
- Not helped by the Ramu decision, uncertainty continues to linger around the roles of the courts, Parliament, Governor-General and the very confusing constitution of PNG. In a nutshell, December saw the Supreme Court throw out a government, only for that government to subsequently pass retrospective legislation that rendered irrelevant the Supreme Court's decision. In response, the Governor-General professed confusion over the legalities of the crisis, before declaring Somare the rightful PM, only to be fired and replaced by Parliament, only then to be re-instated after confessing error and declaring O'Neill PM after all.
2012 was always going to a big year for PNG, with elections due in June/July and the spoils of Exxon-Mobil's US$15 billion LNG project at stake. An internationally-publicised wrangle between the country's most prominent public figure and a near-unknown has only upped the ante, so expect PNG's always-vibrant electoral competition to be extraordinarily fierce this year. Keep abreast of developments by following this blog, along with the #PNG hashtag on twitter and other social media, the unlikely but nevertheless best source of news from the land of the unexpected.
Photo by Flickr user j3tdillo of the mural adorning PNG's parliament.
