Preferential voting systems have been claimed to facilitate “moderation” and “conciliation” in ethnically divided societies, but evidence from settings such as Fiji (1999-2006) and Northern Ireland (1973-2011) has been mixed (Fraenkel & Grofman 2006; Mitchell 2014).
This lecture focuses on a seldom-examined third case, Papua New Guinea (PNG), a highly heterogeneous country with over 800 distinct languages which used an optional preferential voting system briefly during 1964-1972 and then adopted a compulsory alternative vote system for elections held in 2007 and 2012. The dropping of preferential voting after 1972 in favour of first-past-the-post has been credited with encouraging electoral violence, triggering vote-splintering and discouraging the emergence of robust political parties. This paper examines the evidence for that verdict, and questions whether either the 1964-72 or post-2002 preferential voting systems encouraged the emergence of a more cooperative and/or accommodative political culture.