Gender Quotas Database
Papua New Guinea
Melanesia
At a glance
| Structure of parliament | Unicameral |
Are there legislated quotas
Are there voluntary quotas?
| Is there additional information? | Yes |
Single / Lower House
National Parliament
| Total seats | 111 |
| Total women | 3 |
| Percentage of women | 3% |
| Election year | 2022 |
| Electoral system | AV |
| Quota type | Reserved seats |
| Election details | IDEA Voter Turnout - IPU Parline |
| Legal source | Details | |
|---|---|---|
| Quota type: Reserved seats | Constitution |
a number of women elected from a single-member women's electorates as defined under an Organic Law. (Article 101.d) |
| Is the provision of direct public funding to political parties related to gender equality among candidates? | Yes |
An additional payment of 75% of PGK10,000 is made to a political party for each woman candidate who received at least 10% of the votes cast but did not win the electorate, where the party expended money on an election campaign for that candidate See more in International IDEA's Political Finance database |
| Are there provisions for other financial advantages to encourage gender equality in political parties? | No |
BLANK See more in International IDEA's Political Finance database |
Quota at the Sub-National Level
| Quota type | Reserved seats |
| Legal source | Details | |
|---|---|---|
| Quota type: Reserved seats | Electoral law |
- In the provincial council, there is one appointed women’s representative nominated by the provincial council of women in the province, or, if there is not one, the joint provincial planning and budget priorities committee for the province nominates three women. One nominee is then appointed by the provincial executive council. |
Voluntary Political Party Quotas*
| Party | Official Name | Details, Quota provisions |
|---|---|---|
| No data available. | ||
* Only political parties represented in parliament are included. When a country has legislated quotas in place, only political parties that have voluntary quotas that exceed the percentage/number of the national quota legislation are presented in this table.
Additional information
The constitutional amendment, called the ‘Equality and Participation Law’ was successfully passed in 2011. The law amended the constitutional provision relating to the composition of parliament, to include “a number of women elected from single-member women’s electorates as defined under an Organic Law” (Constitution s 101(1)(d)). However, there was not sufficient support in the Parliament for the passage of the enabling laws (namely the Organic Law on Provincial and Local Level Government and the Organic Law on National and Local Government Elections). Hence, the Equality and Participation Law has sat dormant in the Constitution for almost a decade and efforts since early 2019 to activate the law remain unclear. This scenario demonstrates the practical difficulty of securing majority support on the floor of Parliament for improving women’s representation. As it turned out, the parliament voted against the reform to introduce 22 seats for women as a temporary special measure in 2010. (Inclusion, participation and representation: Papua New Guinea as a case study)
Sources
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