9 Aug 2010

New structure needed in PNG to discourage election cheating

8:12 am on 9 August 2010

A new study says there's a need to structure the election process in Papua New Guinea to discourage cheating.

The study found the incentives to cheat far outweigh the incentives to play fair and this leads to violence and ultimately poor governance.

It says rather than rely on coercive penalties there's a need for incentives to encourage everyone to ensure the rules are followed.

The study was commissioned by PNG's National Research Institute, and one of the authors, New Zealand academic, Dr Andrew Ladley, says voting should be structured in such a way that there're higher incentives for people to comply.

"We think that the way to do that is by engaging the community, by establishing rules, by agreement with them and by delaying elections in the event that those conditions are not right, or moving the election processes to places that can be secured, so that you'd get fewer people having access to vote but you'd get dramatically fewer cheating."