Gelu: Proposed amendments to benefit all

Caption: Registrar of Political Parties and Candidates Dr Alphonse Gelu

By MATTHEW VARI

Sunday, June 8, 2014 (Sunday Chronicle, PNG)

REGISTRAR for Political Parties and Candidates Dr Alphonse Gelu defended his office’s proposed changes to the Organic Law on the Integrity of Political Parties and Candidates as one that would be beneficial to everyone- in terms of maintaining stability on the political front. 

The registrar in an interview made reference to clarify the report on the front page of Post Courier June 5 edition, which drew attention to one of the six proposed amendments- the amendment to section 145, which the paper claimed would benefit the ruling People National Congress Party led by Prime Minister Peter O’Neill.

“We are proposing some new amendments to the constitution on the integrity of political parties and candidates,” Dr Gelu said.

“These are necessary in order to make the revised OLIPPAC compliant to the Constitution after the Supreme Court removed certain sections of the OLLIPAC it said that they were unconstitutional in 2010, especially those parts that restricted the movement of members who wanted to leave a party.”

“We are revising the organic law, what has happened is that NEC has approved it and it has gone through for printing.”

He referred to Post Courier’s front page as an exaggeration on its part to zero in on section 145 without first clarifying with the registrar, yet making reference to him in the report.     

“What happened was that the Post Courier sensationalised one aspect of the proposed amendments,” he said.

“Just because his (Prime Minister O’Neill) in government at the moment, it does not mean that we are doing this amendment for him.”

“From the onset there is nothing sinister about these proposed amendments  to the constitution- these amendments were put together by the team that the registry put together to revise the OLIPPAC, and is not an agenda from the current O’Neill-Dion Government.”

He added that the changes had been presented to all party officials since 2013 who were well informed in various forums organised by the his office.

“We are looking at the previous situations we have had in the past til now where governments were being removed just like that- without any warning they could be removed,” Gelu said.

“Because of that they were not comfortable and were not doing anything good, at that time to the economic environment suffered as a result of this.” 

“We are trying to improve it because of instability- and the organic law provided that, until that ruling in the Supreme Court and we are now back to square one.”

“What we are proposing is to set certain conditions for those who want to jump parties, there will be certain processes that have to take place before they move.”

Dr Gelu pointed out that the focus of the revision was on parties themselves.

“Since we cannot touch MPs now we can focus on the Parties, to work with them to develop and help them,” he said.

“When it comes to discipline and those other things, the party constitutions will deal with that, not us.”

“Any issues on resignations will be dealt with by the party constitution, we are here just to manage them and strengthen their existence.”

Proposed under section 145 is that in the event a vote of no confidence is successful to remove the Prime Minister- he is removed but the next PM is to still come from the party that was originally invited by the Governor General to form government.

“The reason for that is that all the parties have been given equal opportunity to go to the elections,” he explained.

“They campaign and are successful because of their effort to gain the highest number of seats because it reflects what the people want and they have earned the right to form government, every party have been given the opportunity to achieve that.”

“In the event that the nominated candidate fails a simple majority of the vote, then the Speaker shall advise the head of state (Governor General) to invite any other candidates declared in the elections to form government to form government after seven days from the date of the vote.”

The other five proposed amendments include;

• Freedom of assembly and association- section 47
• Voting in parliament- section 114
•  Parliamentary privileges- section 115
• Amendments to subdivision H- Section 127
•  Repeal and replace amendment 128

He added that it will go through a one month period for comments from the public, and will go through a committee who will consider the comments and if they want to make changes where they can.