Why Delilah Gore will win Sohe Open

On July 10, I was the first person to break the news that a woman had stormed to the front of Oro Provinces’ Sohe Open. That article created some interest on PNG’s growing social media networks, and was also taken note of by international media – but I don’t think very many took it seriously.

Furthermore, nobody had really heard of Delilah Gore (Sohe folk excluded) including myself, until I wrote that story.

A little bit of research revealed that Gore is the former Ijivitari District Treasurer, and that she resigned from that position to contest the PNG 2012 National Election. It was her first election and she was standing under Don Polye’s Triumph Heritage Empowerment Party. She was also said to have good standing in the community. Nothing extraordinary.

But after spending most of that day checking up on Gore’s progress in Sohe Open, something struck me about the number of votes being cast in Sohe Open – and in particular – how those votes were being cast.  It led me to make the following prediction on July 12:

Delilah Gore still leads in Sohe Open tiny.cc/9278gw. If she ends in Top 3, I predict she'll be in Parliament as #PNG's 5th female MP

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  (@Tavurvur) July 12, 2012

On July 13  I noted:

Delilah Gore has increased her lead in Sohe Open to 1100 votes. Not huge margin, but significant under LPV. She must maintain this lead #PNG

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  (@Tavurvur) July 13, 2012

That same day, I was asked by one of my Twitter followers whether I’d put any money on there being any women in our next parliament. I said yes:

@yatespj Yes. I'd put money on Delilah Gore to win Sohe Open. If she places Top 3 after primary votes, she'll be in Parliament #PNG #pngpol

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  (@Tavurvur) July 13, 2012

This provoked a surprise reaction:

@yatespj Read this tiny.cc/p3cdhw. It's not that she's different per se, it's the way the Sohe people vote. She has a real chance #PNG

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  (@Tavurvur) July 13, 2012

And it is indeed the way the Sohe people vote that is interesting. What immediately struck me as being ‘unusual’ (when compared to other PNG electorates) was the relatively even distribution of votes between all 54 candidates standing in the electorate.

Yes, some candidates were leading and others were losing, but there was no clear margin of difference between each consecutive candidate – from podium position to cellar dweller.

Keeping this in mind, I took the following screenshot of the progressive counting of the top 14 candidates in Sohe Open after Elimination 26:

The screenshot is quite revealing. Apart from Delilah Gore (1st) and sitting MP Anthony Nene (2nd), the remaining 12 candidates (3rd – 14th), are separated by only 855 votes. The numbers for Sohe Open have reflected this trend since counting of votes began.

The reason why women can do well in Sohe is because of how the people of Sohe vote. They vote as per how voting is supposed to be like – no block voting, but conscience votes.

Yes, the fact that Oro Province is probably more traditionally egalitarian than the average PNG province in terms of gender equality is also important to note too, but elector attitudes toward the idea of ‘one vote per person’, chosen by that person, has primarily helped to achieve the result we now see in Sohe.

Tweeps would know that I predicted Delilah Gore to win Sohe Open & be #PNG's 5th ever female MP. Elimination has begun. We'll find out soon.

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  (@Tavurvur) July 17, 2012

As I write this, Sohe Open is in its 50th Elimination Round. Delilah Gore hasn’t won Sohe Open yet. But she will – just as I initially predicted on July 12. And when she does, she will become our 5th ever female MP.

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~ by Tavurvur on July 20, 2012.