ODD CANDIDATES IN NEW GUINEA POLL

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30366, 15 February 1964, Page 13

ODD CANDIDATES IN NEW GUINEA POLL

(N .Z.P .A.-Reuter—Copyright) PORT MORESBY, February 14. About a million black, white and mixed-race voters throughout Papua-New Guinea will start to go to the polls tomorrow in one of the world’s strangest elections.

They will record their votes over the next four weeks and a half to choose 53 members of a 64-member House of Assembly. Many people in' the territory’s urban centres will vote tomorrow; but those in the more isolated areas—•. deep in the coastal swamplands of the Fly river delta and in the rugged peaks of the southern and western highlands districts —will be sought out by election patrols between tomorrow and March 18. Canoe, Shanks’s Pony Papua-New Guinea’s administrative teams will take ballot papers to these people by canoe, four-wheel drive vehicles, helicopter and . on foot. One candidate for the new House is already assured of his seat. He is a former district commissioner, Mr Horrie Niall, who has been returned unopposed. Ten other members will be official appointees. White And “Open” Seats Altogether 200 candidates were nominated for the 64 seats, in the new House. The seats are divided into 10 special electorates where whites only can stand, and 44 are open, where anyone Can take his chance. In the open electorates, 30 whites are standing against native and mixed race candidates. During the last week activity by candidates has been stepped up, although the general tone of the election in

which there is only, one declared party has been “gentle.” No Campaigning The sole representative of the party system is a Port Moresby barrister, Mr Charles Kilduff, who represents the New Guinea Party in the Moresby special electorate. Mr Kilduff has done nd campaigning for his party in Port Moresby. He recently unsuccessfully contested the seat of West. Sydney in the Australian Federal elections, also without campaigning. The group’s platform in part is:— To. obtain representation in Federal Parliament. To press for a free and independent plebiscite in .West New Guinea. The granting of equal opportunities for all, regardless of race, in education and land tenure. Cult Leaders Two former cult leaders, Yali of Madang and PaJiau of Manus; and the present .active cult leader, Francis Hagai of Buka Island, are standing. Paliau, formerly an antigovernment leader on Manus Island in the years following the Second World War, now is a leader of a native local government council. Yali, from the Saidor area of the Rai coast near Madang, a former war-time police sergeant and coastwatcher, won a large following after the war.

He was later gaoled by the administration for his cult activities.

Francis Hagai, secretary of the successful, flourishing, and anti-government Hahalis Welfare Society, is the chief exponent of Buka Island’s “baby farm,” a village of women where all offspring are owned by the community or society.