In the case of MAP, Joseph was given a ministry only briefly in 2019 when James Marape became PM, likely reflecting a close friendship to Marape at the time. For AP and UP, Bryan and Rimbink are influential members in government. Small parties tend to be awarded ministries for specific reasons. They were the Allegiance Party (AP), the Melanesian Alliance Party (MAP) and the United Party (UP), belonging to Bryan Kramer (Madang open), Joseph Yopyyopy (Wosera-Gaui open) and Rimbink Pato (Wapenamanda open), respectively. Between 20, three single-member parties were awarded a ministry. Very small parties can still be awarded ministries. True to form, following the 2022 elections, the Papua and Niugini Union Pati (PANGU) with 39 MPs took 21 of the 32 ministries (excluding PM). Since 2017, the PM’s party commanded an average of 30% of parliament. The largest party since 2017 has been the PM’s party, and taking a disproportionately large share of ministries strengthens in-party alliances, given a leadership challenge usually follows a split in the PM’s party. What this says is that the largest party in the governing coalition tends to take a disproportionately large share of ministries. If you look at Figure 1, you can see that the big exceptions in terms of parties that got more ministries than would be expected based on their size were the largest parties at each point in time. This relationship between number of ministers and party size existed both when government was first formed following the 20 elections, and in between both elections (as party sizes changed as MPs switched parties). However, there were many exceptions to the rule. When I tested this, using data from the PNG MP Database at six points in time from the last parliament to the start of this one, I did find something close to this relationship existed (shown as the line of best fit in Figure 1 see all the regression results). That is, a ministry is awarded for every three MPs that a party has. One rule posited to explain how ministries are awarded to parties in government is according to a 1:3 ratio. The makeup of cabinet changed as party dynamics changed, and at least seven cabinet reshuffles occurred since 2017. ![]() I also describe the relative importance of different ministries, and the politics of creating new portfolios.īetween 20, ministries were awarded to different parties at different times throughout parliament. In this post I describe how ministries were awarded to parties and influential members of parliament (MPs) between 20. ![]() Ministries are also used to maintain fragile coalitions. In Papua New Guinean politics, government ministries are important because the prime minister (PM) awards them to parties that wield the most influence within government.
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