Papua Besena

Papua Besena (lit. Papua Tribe) was a political party in Papua New Guinea.

History

The party was established in June 1973 by independent MP Josephine Abaijah.[1] The party advocated a separate state of Papua and opposed immigration from New Guinea.[1]

In the 1974 Port Moresby City Council elections the party won a landslide victory, and on 16 March 1975 Abaijah declared an independent Papuan state. However, this was ignored by the government.[1] In the 1977 general elections the party won six seats, winning all constituencies in Port Moresby and Central Province.[1] When provincial elections were held in 1979, it was victorious in Central Province.

In 1980 the party joined a government coalition headed by Prime Minister Julius Chan, alongside the Melanesian Alliance Party, the National Party, the People's Progress Party and some members of the United Party.[2]

The party was reduced to three seats in the 1982 general elections, after which it returned to opposition.[3] It lost all three seats in the 1987 elections, in which it received less than 1% of the vote. It did not contest any further national elections.[4]

References

1. Haruhiro Fukui (1985) Political parties of Asia and the Pacific, Greenwood Press, p945
2. Roland Rich, Luke Hambly & Michael G. Morgan (2008) Political Parties in the Pacific Islands, ANU E Press, p87
3. Rich et al., p88
4. Dieter Nohlen, Florian Grotz, & Christof Hartmann (2001) Elections in Asia: A data handbook, Volume II, p771 ISBN 0-19-924959-8