Do we like James Marape?
Our score: 3 out of 10. Real good on violence against women and climate, but his own words rule out promoting gay and lesbian rights, and a deadly police raid is still disputed.
Marape is a leader of the Huli people from the Highlands. He graduated from the University of PNG in 1993 and entered Parliament in 2007 under Sir Michael Somare. He later joined Peter O'Neill's party and became finance minister in 2012. In April 2019 he quit that job, citing exclusion from LNG negotiations, and a month later Parliament elected him PM with 101 of 111 votes. In his maiden speech he pitched PNG as “the richest, black, Christian nation on planet earth.”
He has spent much of his time in the top job fighting to keep it. In April 2025 PNG's Supreme Court ordered Parliament recalled to debate a no-confidence motion against him, after a deputy speaker had rejected the earlier motion. Marape said his government would “honour its ruling,” and reports put about two-thirds of MPs in his camp. Bougainville is the other running sore. He says he can't pre-empt the outcome of the process, and the 2019 referendum, where 98.3 per cent voted for independence, has still not been tabled in Parliament.
On the harm check, the LGBTQ+ record is the sore spot. In June 2023 he said there was no bill to promote gays and lesbians, that existing laws were enough, and that “these unnatural practices are not allowed.” That is his own words, not a guess at what he believes. On women, he pleaded with young men in 2025 to stop violence against them: “Don't do it to our sisters in the neighbourhood.” On climate, he said PNG would be at COP30 to push for landowners to benefit from conservation.
The latest we found is from the middle of this year, and nothing newer turned up. In May he flew to China, talking up green energy and mining deals, including the Frieda River and Ramu Nickel projects. Critics, including a business-institute economist and the PNG union congress, warned about environmental damage and worker conditions. Ramu has a history of a 2019 toxic spill, which makes that warning hard to wave away.
The hardest story to square is January's Tsak Valley raid in Enga. Police say they were fired on and that five people died, including a gunman. Relatives allege excessive force, especially in the deaths of two women, and police haven't confirmed that. Marape backed it as intelligence-led and said the state would take responsibility if innocent people were harmed. As of the reports we read, the independent investigation the families want hadn't been announced. He also says “The gun must belong only to the state.”
The honest bottom line is that the record is thin on personal kindness, and we found no charity work or similar acts to set against the hard parts. What we do have is a leader who speaks well against violence on women and is talking up climate cooperation. He is also a leader who has ruled out promoting LGBTQ+ rights and backs a lethal-force crackdown that is still being questioned. Supporting him would mean putting up with the first for the sake of the second, and for many of us that is a big ask.