Newly installed PNG premier vows anticorruption drive

Newly installed PNG premier vows anticorruption drive

PORT MORESBY (Reuter): Port Moresby mayor Bill Skate was
elected prime minister of Papua New Guinea yesterday after
joining forces with parties he once labeled corrupt -- and
immediately vowed to investigate his new allies.

Skate, a moderate who campaigned against a failed mercenary
deal earlier this year, also pledged to work for peace on
Bougainville island.

"We will fight corruption, but not destroy our own people,"
Skate told parliament. "We will ensure that our government will
be transparent."

Skate defeated former prime minister Sir Michael Somare by 71
votes to 35 in an open ballot in the South Pacific nation's new
109-seat parliament.

Former deputy prime minister Chris Haiveta, criticized by a
judicial inquiry into this year's mercenary fiasco, was expected
to be reappointed deputy leader. Haiveta sat in his usual chair
at Skate's right hand during the vote.

Skate's shock election resulted from a last-minute deal under
which his party, the People's National Congress, and other small
parties and independents backed the former government.

On Sunday, Skate's People's National Congress was still siding
with Somare, but political analysts said Somare's refusal to
allow Skate the top job saw him defect late on Monday.

The back-room deal rescued the former ruling coalition, the
People's Progressive Party (PPP) and Pangu party, from political
oblivion after it was decimated in the June election.

A voter backlash against the former government over alleged
political corruption and the hiring of African mercenaries to end
the secessionist revolt on Bougainville saw 15 ministers,
including Prime Minister Sir Julius Chan, lose their seats.

Chan's hiring of mercenaries sparked an army revolt and two
days of looting in March in the capital Port Moresby -- the
country's worst political crisis since independence in 1975.

Skate campaigned heavily for the removal of Chan during the
crisis, but in the end Chan was said to be key to wooing Skate's
support for his coalition.

Asked by reporters how he could now side with his rivals,
Skate said: "Papua New Guinea has its own way of playing
politics, it is not for foreigners, outsiders, to come here and
dictate how we run our politics."

Skate said he would investigate a series of corruption
charges, including those linked to the US$36 million contract
with British military consultancy Sandline International.

Skate is expected to be a dove on his country's most
intractable problem, the nine-year revolt on Bougainville, and
said yesterday that peace rested with the island's people.

"The people of Bougainville are crying out for peace, my
government will listen to what they want," Skate said. "It is up
to Bougainvilleans to find a solution to the problem."

Skate was born in 1953 and has a degree in accountancy from
the University of Technology in the city of Lae. He was a senior
public servant before entering politics five years ago.

Skate is well known in Port Moresby as a good administrator
who has cleaned up the city and improved services, but he lacks a
national following -- which analysts said may pose an obstacle to
any attempts to bring peace to Bougainville.

Skate's election comes at a crucial time for peace. The New
Zealand government said yesterday that the rebels planned to
release five PNG soldiers held hostage since September 1996.

Two weeks of peace talks in New Zealand between rebels and the
government-backed Bougainville administration ended last week
with an agreement to seek formal peace talks.

Thousands have died in the Bougainville conflict since
landowners revolted in 1988 over damage caused by the huge
Panguna copper mine and the royalties they received from it.