National elections will be held in Papua New Guinea (PNG) in the middle of 2022. Elections are held every five years and are very popular events. Though voting is voluntary, voter turnout is just below that of Australia, where voting is compulsory. An extraordinary number of political candidates compete for office. The average number of candidates per seat grew from 8 in 1977 to 30 in 2017.
In the 2017 elections, 111 men but no women were elected. It is possible but unlikely that special measures will be put in place before the 2022 elections to ensure that that result is not repeated this year. If not, the only remaining hope is that at least a few of the growing number of women who stand at elections are successful at the hustings.
