Papua New Guinea is a Commonwealth realm; as such Queen Elizabeth II acts as its Sovereign and Head of State. It was expected by the constitutional convention, which prepared the draft constitution, and by Australia, the outgoing metropolitan power, that Papua New Guinea would choose not to retain its link with the monarchy. The founders, however, considered that imperial honours had a cachet that the newly independent state would not be able to confer with a purely indigenous honours system, so the monarchy was retained.[peacock term][34] The Queen is represented by the Governor-General of Papua New Guinea, currently Sir Michael Ogio. Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands are unusual among Commonwealth realms in that Governors-General are elected by the legislature rather than appointed by the executive branch.
Actual executive power lies with the Prime Minister, who heads the cabinet of 31 MPs from the ruling Coalition, which make up the government. The current Prime Minister is Peter O'Neill. The unicameral National Parliament has 111 seats, of which 22 are occupied by the governors of the 21 provinces (2 new ones were approved by Parliament in 2012) and the National Capital District (NCD). Candidates for members of parliament are voted upon when the prime minister asks the Governor-General to call a national election, a maximum of five years after the previous national election.
In the early years of independence, the instability of the party system led to frequent votes of no confidence in Parliament with resulting changes of the government of the day, but with referral to the electorate, through national elections only occurring every five years. In recent years, successive governments have passed legislation preventing such votes sooner than 18 months after a national election and within 12-month of the next election, and in December 2012 the first 2 (of 3) readings were passed to prevent votes of no confidence occurring within the first 30 months. This restriction on votes of no confidence has arguably resulted in greater stability, although perhaps at a cost of reducing the accountability of the executive branch of government.
Elections in PNG attract large numbers of candidates. After independence in 1975, members were elected by the first past the post system, with winners frequently gaining less than 15% of the vote. Electoral reforms in 2001 introduced the Limited Preferential Vote system (LPV), a version of the Alternative Vote. The 2007 general election was the first to be conducted using LPV.
In foreign policy, Papua New Guinea is a member of the Commonwealth of Nations, Pacific Islands Forum and the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) of countries and was accorded Observer status within ASEAN in 1976, followed later by Special Observer status in 1981. It is also a member of APEC and an ACP country, associated with the European Union.