20 The final count was Nilles 18,496, Okuk 6,084, Dom 5,887 and Irere 4,949 after excluding Gilmore (4,258), whose 2,121 preferences went 1,382 to Nilles and 339 to Okuk (Kelly 1970).
hastening of decolonization. Australia did not want to be in charge of a United Nations trusteeship which it could not control; these events placed PNG on the agenda of the conservative Australian government, which then initiated the transfers of certain powers at a time when most Papua New Guineans did not even wish to discuss dates for self- government (Wolfers 1976).
In his visit of July 1970, Australian Prime Minister John Gorton unilaterally announced the transfer of executive powers over many domestic issues to the ministerial members in the Administrator's Executive Council (AEC), thereby precipitating the formation of three new political parties additional to Pangu to seek control of the constitutional process and, as Wolfers (1976) put it, articulating a 'more indigenous' conservatism. Among the new parties was Compass (later United Party, UP), which Nilles joined. On his election he had said his decisions would not 'be influenced by any party platform or [alluding to the church] by any organized institution. I shall be
responsible to my conscience and to God' {HAD, 3 September 1970: 3069). Generally
conservative on matters of constitutional change, Nilles basically kept a low political profile. He became a Kundiawa councillor, however, and pushed for the creation of an Area Authority for the district, based upon the councils. This initiative, which had also been foreshadowed by Gorton, is discussed in Chapter VI. Once again, Chimbu politicians were seeking to adopt new structures and arenas, which had been determined elsewhere, into their internal politics.
The 1972 national election
In observing the 1972 House of Assembly campaigns I concentrated on the Regional seat and looked for signs of mobilization and radicalism with modernization (Standish 1976a). Modernization theorists argue that as the economy and politics become more differentiated, as roads open up travel and as a common language, formal education and news media spread new ideas, so too political mobilization becomes not only possible but likely. My interest was whether this would lead to the growth of parties and mass movements using broad - even nationalist - policy or ideological appeals rather than parochial ones, and I doubted that Highlanders were 'conservative'. In Africa as in coastal PNG, politics in the new state organs had been taken over by well educated - and hence young - people, who apparently demonstrated what Staniland (1969:154) called the 'modem young man hypotheses'. Several such educated young men stood for the Chimbu Regional seat (see Table V.l^foi^theirpersonal details), so I decided to focus specifically on their attempts to create wider political publics and indeed a new political arena: the Chimbu District as a whole. The 1970 by-election had demonstrated the
potential use of the churches as political resources and the conflict between those with dependent colonial and bitterly anti-colonial sentiments.
The 1972 Open campaigns followed a pattern now familiar. In the 1972 House there were seven Open seats within Chimbu Regional (see Map V:l).21 An average of ten men stood per seat in Chimbu, compared to a national average below seven, which again reflects rising competition. As in subsequent elections, some of the key decisions over who would nominate were made in private. One ultimate winner allegedly used a carton of beer to persuade an established local politician not to stand. Candidates/ personal backgrounds and occupations are given in Tables V.l and V.2, in Appendix 1. Open seat candidates were younger, more travelled and slightly more educated than those who stood in 1964 and 1968. Their average age was 3& years, and that of winners 35! Two winners were in their twenties: John Kaupa, a hospital secretary from Chuave, and Kobale Kale, who had covered the entire Sinasina electorate well, distributing and planting seedling trees while helping a forestry officer. Kobale sought and gained a harvest of reapeffc. second preferences from areas where he was a 'neutral' figure, and over eleven counts he rose from third to first place (Kuabaal 1976). Kaupa and Kobale were more anti-colonial than their rivals, but they were also the only ones to campaign extensively through their entire electorates.22 Few Open candidates risked opening up inter-group conflicts by campaigning stridently beyond their own or closely related clans, although once again they sought preferences and cooperated with candidates in other areas.
Although the Open electorate campaigns were parochial contests, elements of party
politics were grafted onto some campaigns which were intense. The sympathies of
Kerowagi MHA, Siwi Kurondo, towards Pangu, as well as long-standing local tensions, ledjWahgi (^Cuman ^speaking^people in Kup Census Division to chase Kurondo away when he, as Forests Minister, also campaigned in the guise of distributing seedlings. Kup people had already in September 1971 torn down the newly-adopted national flag in symbolic protest against impending self-government. Only five of the 61 Open candidates in Chimbu were anti-colonial, and self-proclaimed UP supporters predominated.
In the Regional contest, Iambakey Okuk this time claimed Simbu identity, using the middle name 'Palma', which he said was that of his dead father, who had been a
21 With a quota per seat of 30,000 people, this was one more than the number justified by the 1971