Don’t fear the reaper

DEPUTY Prime Minister Belden Namah is under major threat of losing his seat as vote counting continues, while Grand Chief Sir Michael Somare, Petroleum Minister William Duma, Mining Minister Byron Chan and the enduring Sam Abal seem safe so far.

Belden Namah on the campaign trail. Image courtesy of PNG Party.

Image courtesy of Commonwealth Observer Group.

As of count 15 for this seat under the limited preferential voting system, Namah only had 626 total votes compared to 2948 votes for Inaru.

In worse news for Namah, another independent is in second spot ahead of him with Tradggy Nasiai Waramin earning 1442 total votes.

It turns out the well-publicised challenge for the seat from PNG Greens party leader Dorothy Tekwie amounted to little as she only had 19 total votes by yesterday afternoon.

There is more counting to go but it appears Namah is facing the biggest upset of the election.

Candidates from the PNG party he leads are ahead in six seats so far.

The situation is far less dire for Duma, who was initially trailing independent James Yoka Ekip for the Hagen Open seat before more results came in yesterday.

Better known as James Yoka, the 41-year-old accountant and businessman had 666 total votes by the fourth count compared to 521 for Duma.

Yoka previously raised some of his pre-polling concerns to the Sydney Morning Herald.

He reportedly needed to cover the cost of nearly 400 large pigs donated to his campaign effort, which he said fetched an average price of 3000 kina each.

But in the update from the PNG Electoral Commission this morning, Duma was far in front with 6825 total votes by the ninth count, as of yesterday afternoon.

Yoka was in second place with 1565 total votes.

Yet Duma still faces some troubling news as the United Resources party he leads is only in front for two seats at this point, compared to the five it picked up in the 2007 election.

There were some expectations that Somare finally faced defeat in his long-held East Sepik regional seat.

But by the 138th count he is ahead with 53,616 preference-adjusted votes compared to 35,438 from the next-placed rival of Pangu Pati candidate Allan Bird.

Somare’s son Arthur is polling the strongest for his Angoram Open seat but preferences may still impact the final outcome.

Byron Chan appears poised to comfortably retain his Namatanai Open seat while his dad Sir Julius is ahead in his New Ireland Provincial seat.

Abal, the acting PM before the demise of the Somare government’s control over Parliament last year, campaigned as an independent and is set to retain his Wabag Open seat.

Abal wants to rally independents together to form a government and his cause is aided by strong results for some other independent candidates so far.

Treasurer Don Polye will easily hold on to his Kandep Open seat and the Triumph Heritage Empowerment party he founded is ahead in four seats at this stage, including the veteran politician’s own.

Agricultural Minister Sir Puka Temu, formerly a mining minister, looks set to retain his Abau Open seat.

But the Our Development party he created is not leading vote counts in any other seats at this stage.

Results were not in for 34 out of the 111 parliament seats as voting in various areas faced unexpected delays.

Prime Minister Peter O’Neill’s People’s National Congress party has won two seats and is leading in 18 others.

The next biggest force appears to be the Somare-led National Alliance which is leading in nine electorates.

While the PNC appears quite dominant, the independents collectively represent an unknown force as they are in the running to win eight seats at the moment