NORTHERN Governor Gary Juffa said during his term from 2012 up to present, he has observed that politics has been heavily stigmatised and widely considered as a dirty word associated with corruption.
And he urged political parties to help create broad awareness that not all politicians are corrupt.
“This is not true, this is the generalisation that tarnishes the image of politicians who are good people and are doing their best,” he said.
“There are 1 or 2 who are not doing the right thing but the greater majority of politicians in Parliament that I do know of are trying their best to build a better PNG.”
Mr Juffa was speaking at the cheque presentation at the Office of the Registry of Political Parties and Candidates to political party executives yesterday.
He urged political parties and leaders to step up and go out to do awareness to remove the stigma.
Mr Juffa said his small party, Peoples Movement for Change, has been taking all available opportunities to carry out awareness.
“For example, me and my party does what we call ‘Conversations with the future’, where we try as much as possible to get out there and talk to children at primary school, high school, universities and even community groups, villages, youth groups and so forth.
“We get out there and encourage them to start thinking about identifying good leaders among themselves and encourage them to get into politics,” he said.
“If you go to a school and you ask children what they want to be, everyone wants to be a lawyer, an accountant or a doctor, nobody wants to be a leader in parliament because of this stigma that is attached to politics.
“This is something we must manage so that we know this generalisation does not discourage good leaders from coming into parliament.
“Right now what we need is strong firm leadership in parliament and if we have that then we can see progress or changes.”
Mr Juffa also encouraged people to invest in politics and leadership.