Tom Olga (born 16 December 1975) is a Papua New Guinea politician. He was the independent Governor of Western Highlands Province in the National Parliament of Papua New Guinea from 2007 to 2012. [1]
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.
Western Highlands is a province of Papua New Guinea. The provincial capital is Mount Hagen. The province covers an area of 4,299 km², and there are 362,850 inhabitants, making the Western Highlands the most densely populated province. Tea and coffee are grown in the Western Highlands.
The National Parliament of Papua New Guinea is the unicameral national legislature in Papua New Guinea. It was created in 1964 as the House of Assembly of Papua and New Guinea but gained its current name after the nation was granted independence in 1975.
Olga, who comes from the Mul-Baiyer area, was a student leader at the University of Papua New Guinea during protests against government privatisation and land mobilisation policies in 2001 in which four students were killed in a police crackdown. He cited this as his reason for running for parliament when, in 2007, he challenged former Prime Minister Paias Wingti in his seat of Western Highlands Provincial. [2] [3] He was supported in his campaign by the Millennium Pack 2000, a group of provincial leaders supporting pro-development and anti-corruption initiatives, and more than thirty local councillors. [4] [5]
Mul-Baiyer District is a district of the Western Highlands Province of Papua New Guinea. Its capital is Baiyer. The population of the district was 83,036 at the 2011 census.
The University of Papua New Guinea (UPNG) is a university located in Port Moresby, capital of Papua New Guinea. It was established by ordinance of the Australian administration in 1965. This followed the Currie Commission which had enquired into higher education in Papua New Guinea. The University of Papua New Guinea Act No. 18, 1983 bill repealing the old Ordinance was passed by the National Parliament in August 1983.
The Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea, is Papua New Guinea's head of government, consequent on being the leader of the party or coalition with majority support in the National Parliament.
Olga campaigned on a platform of fighting government corruption and mismanagement and stemming the exploitation of the country's resources. He also made an issue of the need for a new generation of leaders, contrasting his age of 32 with Wingti's advancing years. [2] The final result was extremely close, with Wingti leading for most of the count, but ultimately losing to Olga on preferences in the final stage of counting. It was the last electorate to be declared, with Olga being eventually announced as the winner on 6 August. The result was widely considered an upset, with the potential to end Wingti's thirty-year career in national politics. [6] The result enraged some of Wingti's supporters, who retaliated by blocking roads in the region and digging up a major road into the city of Mount Hagen. [7] Wingti subsequently filed a petition challenging the result with the Court of Disputed Returns on 17 August. [8] This challenge has not yet been resolved.
Mount Hagen is the third largest city in Papua New Guinea, with a population of 46,250. It is the capital of the Western Highlands Province and is located in the large fertile Wahgi Valley in central mainland Papua New Guinea, at an elevation of 1,677 m (5,502 ft).
He was sworn in as the provincial governor on 22 August 2007. Olga's first act as governor was to advertise all acting public service positions in the province, including that of the provincial administrator. [9] He also pledged to increase government services to remote areas of the province. [10]
In January 2012, he joined Don Polye's new Triumph Heritage Empowerment Rural Party. [11]
Don Pomb Polye(born 1 February 1967) was a senior Papua New Guinean politician from Enga Province. He has been a Cabinet Minister under two Prime Ministers, and was briefly Deputy Prime Minister from July to December 2010. Earlier, he has held Foreign Affairs, Immigration, Transport, Civil Aviation, Finance and Treasury portfolios.
He was defeated in a rematch with Wingti at the 2012 election. [12]