(3 of 3)
Groups whose candidate fails to win a seat may be left to fend for themselves. In the Highlands, landowners block roads and charge a toll to let drivers pass, or claim compensation for letting development projects go ahead. Last year the University of Goroka was shut down for a month by villagers demanding $800,000 for the land it occupies (they got it). Individuals, too, succumb to the grab-it-now mentality. Postal workers steal parcels, students bribe teachers for better grades, police sell rifles to criminals. People with jobs collect paychecks but don't show up for work, or connive with wantoks to steal equipment from their workplace.
Jobless young men drift to the towns, where many join raskol (criminal) gangs. Mike Hane, 29, from Heganofi in the Eastern Highlands, was an armed robber in Port Moresby until he was jailed for three years after a shootout with police. Now the only traces of his past are the inky skull-and-crossbones tattoo on his left hand and the bullet scars on his shoulder. Why do so many of his peers in the capital's squatter settlements turn to crime? "The politicians are selfish, so we have to be selfish," he says. "These times are very hard. Some people have nothing to eat. They can't even look after their wantoks, they just look after themselves."
Captured raskols can expect prison sentences, but most corrupt big men "walk off scot-free," says lawyer Wadau, who is standing for Parliament. "Leaders who do a crime are barred from office for three years, but usually they're not prosecuted. For them it's a big joke." Ordinary folk aren't laughing. Public radio last month broadcast an election song by a Catholic youth group from Bereina, outside Port Moresby: "It's time for justice, no time for bribery ... vote righteous leaders for honesty and prosperity." Says Transparency's Siaguru: "Individuals and groups are starting to demand fair treatment regardless of links and personal relationships. Everyone is coming to the realization that we've got to stop this rot before it becomes totally endemic."
Under a tree opposite Goroka's market, a herbalist dispenses gray and brown liquids in plastic soft-drink bottles. His potions, he claims, can cure anything from asthma to aids. The national government has applied more conventional formulas, streamlining the public service and privatizing state authorities "so as to remove these institutions," says Morauta, "from the hands of the politicians, bureaucrats and private citizens who have destroyed them through corruption." Siaguru believes P.N.G. now has "leaders with the ability to put in place more of the right medicine, the right policies." But not everyone has faith in Morauta's therapies. In an outburst in Parliament this month, Opposition leader Bill Skate-a former Prime Minister who once jested that he was "the Godfather of Port Moresby"-blamed the country's ills on Morauta and declared "all-out war" on him at the ballot box.
In Goroka, chef Gimbe thinks voting is futile. "I'm sick of politics," he says. Former Lands secretary Alaluku now tends a small vanilla plantation and prefers not to think about political life. Yet he hasn't given up on politicians, many of whom, he says, are honest and well intentioned. "I have encouraged a lot of family members and other people to enrol and vote," he says. "But there are so many candidates"-at the 1997 poll, one electorate had 60-"that for all your good intentions, the good guys may not get in."
In Madang, the Assemblies of God Church and the Christian Revival Church stand side by side, separated by a low hedge. Each Sunday morning, the two congregations engage in sonic warfare, trying to drown each other out with hymns and electric guitars. In P.N.G. politics, too, two gospels are struggling for supremacy. The small people's voices are getting louder, but the song of the big men is as lusty as ever.