Political deadlock frustrates Bougainville’s aspirations of independence

The territory voted in 2019 to leave Papua New Guinea, but the country’s parliament is still to ratify the separation.

Nearly five years after the islanders of remote Bougainville voted decisively in a referendum for independence from Papua New Guinea (PNG), local frustrations are rising as the political process falters.

More than 97 percent of voters in the autonomous island region of about 300,000 people, in eastern PNG, chose independence over greater autonomy in a 2019 referendum. But there cannot be a change in its political status until the result has been ratified by PNG’s parliament.

After high-level talks stalled, parliamentary ratification, which was supposed to take place last year, failed to happen. Achieving it this year is “a possibility, but not yet a likelihood”, Professor Anthony Regan of the Department of Pacific Affairs at the Australian National University (ANU) told Al Jazeera.

Last year, major disagreements about how the ratification process should work led to a breakdown in talks between the national and Bougainville governments. A major bone of contention is that Bougainville wants the parliamentary vote to be a simple majority, while PNG says it should be a two-thirds majority.

Both parties have agreed an international moderator is needed to break the deadlock, but any appointment is likely to take time.