Politics of Papua New Guinea - Legislative Branch

Legislative Branch

Papua New Guinea has a unicameral National Parliament, previously known as the House of Assembly. It has 109 seats, with 89 elected from single-member "Open" electorates and 20 from province-level "Provincial" electorates. Members are elected by popular vote to serve five-year terms. The most recent election was held in June–July 2007.

Members of Parliament are elected from the nineteen provinces and the National Capital District. After independence in 1975, members were elected by the first past the post system, with winners frequently gaining less than 15% of the vote. Electoral reforms in 2001 introduced the Limited Preferential Vote system (LPV), a modified version of alternative vote, where voters number their first three choices among the candidates. The first general election to use LPV was held in 2007.

Parliament introduced reforms in June 1995 to change the provincial government system, with Provincial members of Parliament becoming provincial governors, while retaining their national seats in Parliament. However, if a provincial member accepts a position as a cabinet minister, the role of governor falls to one of the Open members of Parliament from the province.

Following the 2007 general election, the National Parliament had 108 male MPs and only 1 female, Dame Carol Kidu.