PORT MORESBY, Papua New Guinea (AP) — Papua New Guinea’s general election began in a whirl of color and drums Saturday, as voters dressed in traditional garb lined up at polling stations with hopes of stability for their struggling Pacific nation.
The country is holding its seventh election since gaining independence from its southern neighbor Australia in 1975.
Prime Minister Mekere Morauta has labeled the 2002 poll as the country’s most important. It is being contested by almost 3,000 candidates from 43 political parties and including hundreds of independents.
The makeup of the 109-seat Parliament will not be known until official results are released July 15.
Saturday, men and women from ancient tribes lined up at polling stations in remote areas to cast their ballots. As many as 830 languages are spoken by the country’s tribes, and some remote communities are virtually untouched by modern life.
One voter, wearing little more than a Bird of Paradise headdress, beat a traditional drum as he moved into the voting booth while armed police looked on.
The voting will take two weeks to complete, largely because of the country’s geography. Papua New Guinea’s population of 5 million is spread over an area that is roughly the size of the U.S. state of California. The country has towering mountains, active volcanoes and large tracts of pristine rain forest.
There were no reports of violence at polling stations Saturday, but security remains tight ahead of voting on Monday in the capital, Port Moresby.
While campaigning officially stopped at midnight, some candidates in the highlands were still trying to persuade voters Saturday, shouting speeches through megaphones from the backs of pickup trucks.
The reformist Morauta hopes to be returned to office, where he has tried for three years to push through economic reforms against a background of mounting national debt, growing corruption, widespread violence and discontent within the army.
The 55-year-old faces tough competition from his five predecessors, who are all running for re-election. Like them, analysts say, Morauta will likely fall victim to the political system’s vagaries.
“It’s impossible to predict who will win a seat…but one thing I would put money on is that, as always, the one person who won’t be prime minister after the election is the prime minister before the election,” said Donald Denoon, a professor of Pacific Studies at Australian National University.
At the last election, in 1997, Morauta’s People’s Democratic Movement won only 10 seats. The remaining seats were split between 12 other parties and 40 independents.
