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.