The Indigenous People's Party is a political party in Papua New Guinea.
A political party is an organized group of people, often with common views, who come together to contest elections and hold power in the government. The party agrees on some proposed policies and programmes, with a view to promoting the collective good or furthering their supporters' interests.
Papua New Guinea, officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is an Oceanian country that occupies the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and its offshore islands in Melanesia, a region of the southwestern Pacific Ocean north of Australia. Its capital, located along its southeastern coast, is Port Moresby. The western half of New Guinea forms the Indonesian provinces of Papua and West Papua.
It was founded in 2011 by former Sandaun Province Governor John Tekwie, although he had previously touted creating a party of the same name as early as 2006. He described the party as having a "mission to represent and deal with all issues affecting the lives of indigenous people, especially those in the border provinces of PNG". The party's policies included "ownership and wealth creation for resource owners, creation of an indigenous empowerment financial system, higher and basic education, gender empowerment, indigenous business development [and] village development". It also pledged to create a new "Border Region" in addition to the existing formal regions of Papua New Guinea and to institute a "Ministry of Spiritual Development". [1] [2] [3] The party's deputy leader was Misty Baloiloi, a former vice-chancellor of the Papua New Guinea University of Technology, while Bougainville separatist leader Sam Kauona was a party member. [3]
Sandaun Province is the north-westernmost province of Papua New Guinea. It covers an area of 35,920 km² and has a population of 248,411. The capital is Vanimo. In July 1998 the area surrounding the town Aitape was hit by an enormous tsunami caused by a Magnitude 7.0 earthquake which killed over 2,000 people.
The Papua New Guinea University of Technology or 'Unitech' is located 8 km outside Lae, in the Morobe Province of Papua New Guinea. It has 13 teaching departments and 3 affiliated colleges.
Bougainville Island is the main island of the Autonomous Region of Bougainville of Papua New Guinea. This region is also known as Bougainville Province or the North Solomons. Its land area is 9,300 km2. The population of the province is 234,280, which includes the adjacent island of Buka and assorted outlying islands including the Carterets. Mount Balbi at 2,700 m is the highest point.
The party won one seat at the 2012 election, with Loujaya Toni winning in Lae Open. [4] Toni subsequently crossed to the governing People's National Congress, leaving the party unrepresented in parliament. [5] Almost nothing has been heard of the party since the 2012 election, but it remains formally registered to contest the 2017 election. [6]
Loujaya Kouza is a Papua New Guinean politician, poet and singer. She was known under her married name of Loujaya Toni when he elected, but reverted to her maiden name in 2013 after divorcing her husband.
The People's National Congress is a political party in Papua New Guinea. Its former leader Bill Skate served as Prime Minister from 1997 to 1999 and as speaker of Parliament from 2002 to 2004. Skate died in 2006 and the party is now led by Peter O'Neill. PNC originated from the National Capital District where former leader was the Governor of NCD and the Parliamentary Member. The party had 31 members in the 111-seat National Parliament of Papua New Guinea as of December 2017.
