Paias Wingti

Paias Wingti (born February 2, 1951 ) is a Papua New Guinean politician. He was Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea from 1985 to 1988, and again from 1992 to 1994.

Wingti is a member of the Jika Tribe from the Western Highlands Province . He studied economics at the University of Papua New Guinea and won the election for the parliamentary seat of the electoral district of Mount Hagen in 1977 during his senior year at university . In 1985 he became the youngest Prime Minister of the Commonwealth as leader of the People's Democratic Movement , which he had split off from the Pangu Party ; after Michael Somare lost a motion of censure in parliament. Julius Chan , who had run for prime minister himself, became his deputy.

Since 1987 Wingti has led a coalition of five parties, which ruled in parliament with a majority of three votes. In foreign policy he strengthened relations with the Soviet Union , the USA , Japan and the People's Republic of China . He lost another motion of censure in 1988, but returned to power in 1992 for another two-year term.

In 1993 Paias Wingti traveled to Indonesia , Malaysia and Singapore for talks with his counterparts in order to establish new economic relations with these countries for the resource-rich Papua New Guinea, which had previously mainly traded with Australia .

From 2002 to 2007 he was governor of the Western Highlands Province; an office that he had previously held from 1995 to 1997. He lost his parliamentary seat in the 2007 parliamentary elections.

Web links

• Highlands Post: Our People, Our Region. 2001