role for the Open members, and only expatriates could stand for these electorates. The Special seats were intended to calm fears of rapid decolonization among expatriates and indigenous people alike.
Talair, based in Goroka. Criper (1965) says these two were barely known in the Upper Chimbu valley, but both visited briefly. Buchanan created much interest by bombarding people with leaflets from his aircraft, but the better known Downs won with a 77 per cent majority.
The 1964 elections were so quiet the deputy DC was concerned beforehand that there might be insufficient nominations (Doolan interview, May 1978). Voting was held in February-March, before coffee incomes expanded peoples' wallets. On average, five men nominated for the Open seats: Chimbu (eleven), Chuave (four), Gumine (two) and Kerowagi (five). Two Europeans stood, both men with trading and coffee buying
interests and Chimbu wives; both polled strongly. After the kiaps had explained the
possibility of splitting an area's votes, there were negotiations towards preselection - a move to put up only one Upper Chimbu candidate in order to prevent someone from another area winning - but this attempt broke down (Criper 1965). The Simbu men who became candidates were mostly older men of renown, some of them village officials and councillors, subsistence farmers who had made their 'names' in the context of traditional exchange. Matters such as continued Australian rule and development were not contentious, because these were sought by all candidates. The candidates moved around the Chimbu electorate as a group, merely introducing themselves, saying in similar pat formula speeches that they were already known to the people and would talk out 'strongly' for them in this big new council in Port Moresby down at the sea (Criper 1965).
An 'optional preference' (elsewhere called 'transfer vote') system was used, whereby voters after giving their first preference could then opt to rank any of the remaining candidates. If no candidate had an absolute majority of valid first preference votes on the first count, the candidate with the lowest total was eliminated and his voters' second preferences were transferred at full value to the remaining candidates. The distribution process continued thus until a candidate gained an absolute majority of the votes remaining in the count.15 This process could lead to the defeat of the first count front-runner, who under a 'first past the post' simple plurality system would have won.
Rather than establishing a zero-sum mind-set in which anyone's gain was automatically a loss to others, the preference system was intended to encourage co operation between candidates. Clans or allied groups with opposing candidates could assist each other, knowing that if one lost his preferences could still go to a closely allied
candidate, provided enough second preferences (known as 'namba tu vot') had been
indicated. A large group fielding two or more candidates could still elect a representative, provided preferences stayed tight, requiring good will between candidates in the campaign period.
So far as can be determined, the winners were those whose area of potential votes
was least split by rivals. Aside from the Australian tx-kiap (Graham Pople) elected in
Gumine, who had earlier run political education patrols there, the Simbu MHAs were a
council vice-president and former medical orderly and tultul (Waie Siune), an ex
policeman, businessman and council president (Siwi Kurondo), and a village official and small businessman (Yauwe Wauwe Moses) who when his area obtained a council, was elected to that body. Together they epitomized the Simbu colonial elite. The turnout of voters ranged from 45 to 75 per cent of those enrolled. To gain a majority^ several counts of votes were needed, to distribute those preferences which some people had allocated. Despite the massive administrative effort, the elections as a whole did not have a significant impact on village life.
The lives of these Simbu members were changed, however, a fact noticed by other men of ambition in status-conscious Simbu. MHAs received substantial salaries ($1,900 p.a.), free travel and travelling allowances of $10.50 p.d. plus a $50.00 p.a. postage and telephone allowance. Many also were taken on overseas 'political education' study tours,
mainly to Australia. Generally they concentrated on building up their bisnis activities at
home, sometimes using their influence to gain access to government and private credit, and technical help from Chimbu-based public servants. Some of these men are still prominent, with coffee-buying vehicles, large stores, retail liquor licences, cattle projects and so on, and they could afford to send their children to high school. Renowned in their own clans and tribes, they were accorded respect by black and white alike in Kundiawa, even though in Port Moresby they sometimes appeared to act like dependent puppets of the colonial regime. Beyond their^fans, they were widely criticized for failing to report back to their whole electorate about parliament and its alien rituals.
A prestigious new arena had been opened, which for some successful candidates provided power in the state, for others influence. Many more resources became available to the new national members. Like the village officials and councillors, these men had used their bases in clans and tribes to gain state office, and then utilized the perquisites of office to strengthen their position within their groups. Thus political office was translated into status and prestige. This process, which continues, was a modification of the precolonial leaders' technique of mediation between kinship groups, and gaining political resources from that role. The mechanism was similar, but the scale of the spheres
between which the new MHAs moved had increased markedly. With political time, political space had expanded.
The first House as a whole had a limited effect on territory-wide affairs, and the politicians who were elected from Simbu had little impact except by supporting the colonial regime. As Highlanders, they mostly wanted to delay decolonization. The exception was the former policeman, Siwi Kurondo of Kerowagi, who consistently voted with the nationalist group which in 1967 became the Pangu Pati (Papua and New Guinea Union Party) (Loveday and Wolfers 1976: 36). Like the Australian members, the indigenous MHAs shared a fear of Indonesian expansionism, a fear then prevalent in Chimbu (Criper 1965: 137) and in PNG overall (Nelson 1974),but in general parochial concerns overrode national affairs. No MHA from Chimbu became an under-secretary, the ill-defined and powerless quasi-ministerial training position that was created for the first House (Parker 1966a:257-58; Parker and Wolfers 1971:27; Meller 1968:3-5).
In 1968 the four Special electorates were abolished in favour of fifteen Regional seats, generally one per district. For Regional candidacy there was no racial qualification but instead a prerequisite of Territory Intermediate (Year 9) or its equivalent education, which excluded all but a few educated (and hence young) indigenes. Chimbu Regional was won by the CCC manager Pyne, in competition with the sitting Gumine MHA16 and an audacious but polite secondary teacher trainee, Godfrey Agen Dua from Sinasina.
Chimbu gained another Open seat in 1968, Sinasina, and that year political competition increased greatly. The DC commented that the elections were seen as 'something of a lottery', with parliamentary office 'a political plum worth picking' (PNG 1968:36). On average, there were 13.4 candidates (all male) per Open seat in Chimbu in 1968 compared with the national average of 6.3. Again there was a 74 per cent voter turnout. But campaigning was fairly quiet, with repetitive agreement amongst the candidates that they wanted to defer self-government and eventual independence. Candidates drilled the public more effectively in the use of preferences, and - as elsewhere - these were used effectively. In Chimbu, preferences enabled three candidates to overtake the leaders on the first counts and eventually to win.
Building on strong bases as local big-men, two of the three incumbent Open members were re-elected, so there was little change. One was the Chuave MHA, Yauwe
Moses, cx-luluai, thriving businessman and council president. Also returned, after several
16 Pople, a coffee buyer and trader, allegedly visited his Gumine electorate rarely and reportedly was
counts, was Siwi Kurondo of Kerowagi.17 Kurondo left Pangu, which opted for the role of 'loyal opposition', in order to accept the new post of Assistant Ministerial Member for Forests. His rural business interests grew but he kept up the almost ostentatious scruffiness affected by some older Simbu leaders.
As elsewhere in the Highlands, the Chimbu consensus was against all political parties (jokes about beer parties aside) because the first viable party was the anti-colonial
Pangu identified by Highlands MHAs and their expatriate Australian eminences grises as
dangerous 'coastals'. An official political education leaflet (quoted in Loveday and Wolfers 1976: 16-17) had described a political party as 'a group of like-minded people who aim at gaining power in the Government of a self-governing country', something very few Highlanders wanted PNG to become, at that time. In the 1960s, anyone who spoke favourably of independence was seen as radical. The Administration appointed four Highlands DCs or ex-DCs (but not Doolan) as official members in the second House and with their lobbying could muster sufficient support to act like the majority political party - without using that label, of course.
In their hostility to parties and constitutional change in general, most Highlanders were influenced by expatriate businessmen-politicians, several of whom were elected in 1968 and immediately set about organising in opposition to Pangu. They initiated an Independent (Members) Group with a strong Highlands component which in late 1970 became Compass (short for 'Combined Political Association'), and then early in 1971 converted itself into the United Party (UP). The UP was able to dominate the House till the 1972 election (Woolford 1973; Stephen 1972; Loveday and Wolfers 1976).
Two points about these early elections are noteworthy. First, alcohol had become legally available to indigenes in 1962, but was not widely used by Simbu till much later in the decade. However, according to a missionary witness (pers. comm. 1977), one expatriate candidate in 1964 did 'treat' some of his supporters generously, with a mobile beer party in his jeep. Such behaviour would have broken the Criminal Code which then, as now, prohibits 'treating' which is defined as giving liquor to influence votes.
The second is that, despite commonly professed colonial attitudes, there were some Highlands candidates who wanted change in a hurry. One such was the young mechanic Iambakey Okuk, who contested the Regional seat for the Western Highlands where he had been brought up by the Simbu policeman, Corporal Okuk, and worked at Wabag.
Despite Iambakey's protestations that he was a good Western Highlander, did not want political independence for the Territory and belonged to no 17 On hearing he was losing on the first count, Kurondo put an axe through his radio.
political party, his name became inextricably associated with that of
Pangu. (Colebatch etal. 1971: 271)
Hence he was thought to favour early self-government and independence, and to oppose the Australian Administration. He spoke of his friendship at Sogeri High School with Pangu leader Michael Somare, yet presented himself as a regionalist advocating Highlands rather than national goals (Hal Colebatch, pers. comm. 1977).
There was no 'Yessir' in Iambakey's political vocabulary: he was prepared to argue with the European candidates and stand up to cross
examination. (Colebatch et al. 1971: 272).
Although he lost that election to an Australian planter, Okuk's 1968 campaign in the neighbouring province was a sign of things to come in Chimbu.
1970 B y-election
When a by-election was called after Eric Pyne's departure, Okuk quickly moved back to Kundiawa and became a part-time mechanic at Chimbu Coffee. Barely known in Chimbu, where some called him a Hagener', he started campaigning for the Regional seat. His job provided transport and enabled him to build up local support, an early illustration of how employment can help a candidate and of the central place of CCC in the politics of Chimbu. Collins has said that in removing all part-timers he was unaware of sacking a candidate (interview, 7 July 1972), but also that he gave Okuk the choice of staying as a
mechanic or leaving for politics, and he left (National Times, July 1-6, 1974). Okuk took
a strongly critical and even nationalist stance on most issues and lived up to his 'radical' reputation, and so once again was painted with the Pangu brush. He spent over $1,000 in an energetic campaign, and later worked briefly (and unsuccessfully) as a coffee buyer for the Society (Hatanaka 1970; Standish 1976a).
Entry to the Chimbu elite was widening, and political competition intensifying. Several young Chimbu returned home hoping to campaign in the by-election, but some, including Mathew Numambo Siune,18 dropped out when the conservative banner was taken up by the 'retired' missionary Fr John Nilles. Nilles stood following the suggestion
of council presidents, MHAs and 'Administration people' {House of Assembly Debates,
HAD, 3 September 1970:3069) including the DC but not, he said, because of the DC
(pers. comm. 1976). He styled himself 'Papa Nilles'. The rhetoric of Okuk excepted, the
Simbu debate was indeed paternalist in 1970. During a hard-fought campaign Nilles received considerable material support from the airline operator Buchanan, who was by
18 Mathew Siune had failed UPNG preliminary year and worked as an interpreter at the House of
now the Independent Group MHA for Eastern Highlands. Also standing were an Australian businessman (Graham Gilmore) who was a former Eastern Highlands MHA, an agronomist from Gulf District based in Chuave (Francis X. Irere), and a second Simbu, a Lutheran ex-patrol officer from Sinasina (Gela Dorn) who was also considered radical, which meant anti-colonial.19
Probably because of poor outreach by candidates and because people lacked the stimulus for voting for their favourite sons in concurrent elections for Open seats, only 37.5 per cent of enrolled persons voted. Nilles won with 46 per cent of the valid primary vote, Okuk gained 15 per cent and Gela Dorn was only 47 votes behind him, with the Australian, Gilmore, and the Papuan, Irere, gaining 11 and 13 per cent respectively.20 Dorn's votes were concentrated in his home area, whereas those of Nilles and Okuk were fairly widely spread. As he had intended, Okuk had made his name for the 1972 election.
Given the size of the Regional electorate, resources other than a clan base were needed to win. Several people with mission backgrounds had stood unsuccessfully in previous elections without sectarianism becoming an issue, but this changed in 1970. To an extent Okuk tried to identify himself with the Lutheran Church. Nilles was undoubtedly helped by Catholic churchmen, especially catechists, but sectarian tensions were not stirred by the two leading candidates. Officials took extreme precautions to balance the denominational composition of polling team members, in order to avoid charges of bias from the losers. The suggestion that Nilles, and/or his supporters, had abused his church position came from Gilmore - himself a Catholic. The results did not obviously indicate voting on denominational lines, which could only be assessed by a detailed examination of voting figures for areas which were 'neutral' in kinship terms (those which had no ties with any candidates), and where the candidates had different church membership. The potential influence of church workers as community leaders was,
however, seen by political actors as significant.
Once again externally induced constitutional factors were about to change the rules of politics for Simbu players. These changes were precipitated, not by PNG nationalism but by the anti-colonial zeal of the Australian Labor Party and Opposition Leader, Gough Whitlam, who announced policies for rapid decolonization when he visited in December- January 1969-70 (Johnson 1983). The 1969-70 campaign of the Mataungan Association in East New Britain against multi-racial councils and for land also contributed to the
19 My thanks to Hal Colebatch and David Hegarty who kindly gave access to their field observations on