The People's First Party (also known as the People First Party, Pipol First Party or Pipol's First Party) is a

political party A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular area's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific political ideology, ...

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea, officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is an island country in Oceania that comprises the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and offshore islands in Melanesia, a region of the southwestern Pacific Ocean n ...

. It was established in August 2001 by

Morobe Province Morobe is a province on the northern coast of Papua New Guinea. The provincial capital and largest city is Lae. The province covers 33,705 km2, with a population of 674,810 (2011 census), and since the division of Southern Highlands Province ...

governor

Luther Wenge Luther Akisawa Wenge (born 12 December 1959) is a Papua New Guinean politician. He is Governor of Morobe Province and a member of the National Parliament of Papua New Guinea as a member of the Pipol First Party from 1997 to 2012. After 10 years, ...

. Wenge was re-elected at the 2002 election and Tom Amukele elected for Okapa Open. Amukele attempted to defect to the governing National Alliance Party of

Michael Somare Sir Michael Thomas Somare (9 April 1936 – 25 February 2021) was a Papua New Guinean politician. Widely called the " father of the nation" (), he was the first Prime Minister after independence. At the time of his death, Somare was also the lo ...

, resulting in protests from Wenge; however, this did not occur after Wenge agreed to support Somare. In September 2002, the party won a Supreme Court declaration that legislation introducing a

value added tax A value-added tax (VAT or goods and services tax (GST), general consumption tax (GCT)) is a consumption tax that is levied on the value added at each stage of a product's production and distribution. VAT is similar to, and is often compared wi ...

was unconstitutional. A reported merger with the United Party in October 2002 did not proceed, with the party reported to still have two MPs at that time: Wenge and Amukele. In March 2004, Wenge called for the resignation of Somare, alleging mishandling of the nation's affairs, and stated that he was willing to become prime minister. However, the party continued to support the Somare government in parliament. Wenge was the party's only MP to be elected at the 2007 election. Wenge claimed, following the declaration of his seat in a close race against businessman Bob Sinclair, that he would introduce a law to restrict naturalised citizens from contesting elections because Papua New Guinea was "a black country and not white country". Wenge lost his seat at the 2012 election, and the party did not have parliamentary representation again until 2022. The party was registered to contest the 2017 election. At the 2022 election the party gained 4 seats in the 113-seat Parliament.

References

Political parties in Papua New Guinea 2001 establishments in Papua New Guinea Political parties established in 2001 {{PapuaNewGuinea-party-stub