Major Airport Disrupted, Roads Promised As PNG Election Nears
Flights in and out of the main airport in Papua New Guinea’s Highlands city of Mt Hagen have been disrupted by some election candidates. Meanwhile, the Prime Minister’s campaign trail has passed through the Highlands where one province is now without a Governor following a court ruling.
Supporters of 12 candidates for Mt Hagen Open on Wednesday followed through on a threat they made to close Kagamuga Airport unless the appointment of the electorate’s returning officer was revoked.
The threat was delivered by petition to the Electoral Commissioner last week, even though the twoweek polling period is due to begin on June 24.
According to the Post Courier, the National Airports Corporation has had to scale down its operations at Kagamuga.
Airline operators like Air Niugini, Airlines PNG and Mission Aviation Fellowship cancelled some flights so as not to compromise safety in their services.
The protesting candidates said they disrupted the airport because the Commissioner, Patalias Gamato, failed to respond to their petition.
Mr Gamato said last week there would be no changes to any appointments of returning officers. The group also wanted the assistant returning officer’s appointment revoked. But the commissioner said evidence of transgression must be presented to the courts to change an appointment of any electoral officer.
Meanwhile, local police say the group of protesting candidates had breached the Civil Aviation Act by closing the airport.
Police said the airport will be opened again soon. However the Police Commissioner Gary Baki said the disruption would affect the deployment of various Police units to the Highlands for the polling period which begins on June 26.
The Mt Hagen airport situation reportedly caused a change of plan for prime minister Peter O’Neill in his election campaigning as he sought to fly in to Western highlands from Chimbu province. According to The National, said the candidates’ actions showed a lack of leadership and maturity.