HYPOCRISY OVER DEMOCRACY (Part 1)

By Sylvester Gawi

Hypocrisy is defined as the practice of claiming to have higher standards or more noble beliefs than is the case. In Papua New Guinea context, the word hypocrisy mainly aligns itself with politicians and people with high egoism.

Why politicians? Most of our politicians and wannabe leaders have portrayed high egoism or bikman mentality which has downplayed the powers of democracy in our sovereign nation.

The silence by our educated elites in doctors, professors, lawyers, and accountants etc who are now occupying seats in the National Parliament is a clear indication of it.

A senior government minister laughs over lacking health facilities, another questions “Who are they?” referring to students shot by police and another maintains silence over issues of national interest and get knighted.

Public outrage on social media have also articulated frustrations on the Prime Minister condemning the Orlando Nightclub shooting and NOT the UPNG students shooting by police.

The International community have also condemned the police shooting on unarmed students and that has jeopardise the democratic and human rights of individual citizens.

That’s not all, the massive infrastructure changes undertaken in Port Moresby to impress visiting delegates is a total disgrace with major national highways across the country in bad conditions.

Hospitals, classrooms, dormitories, court houses, police stations are crumbling, major roads and highways deteriorating and rivers becoming impassable.

While politicians continue to pretend in Port Moresby that all is well back home, mothers are dying during childbirth, law and order problems escalates and school children having no classrooms to learn.

The local people are forced to walk hundreds of kilometres, carrying their coffee bags, sick patients, medical supplies and other loads to seek assistance, while the politicians drive around the city lights at the expense of the people.

It’s a pity that politicians don’t get committed to all their sweet talks during the elections and live a pretending life in Port Moresby and Lae.

While people around the country have lauded support for their children attending universities around the country, a minority of parliamentary leaders have took time to condemn unlawful police actions in the situation.

Now one may have realised I used the word politician other than leader because most politicians don’t seem fit to be bestowed a leadership title.

It’s the other way around, they are servants and agents of change but have deliberately gone silent over the cries of the people that mandated them.

Hypocrisy has become a new term for deviating from reality of developments around Papua New Guinea.