In a spectacular triumph, Britain’s Green Party has won the Gorton and Denton byelection in Greater Manchester.

Local plumber Hannah Spencer has now become the party’s fifth MP — a historic victory for the ascendent Greens, who ran a campaign of national hope and international solidarity against Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

The byelection result is also a huge upset in Britain’s political status quo.

The Labour party, which won the seat with more than 50 percent of the vote in 2024 and held the seat for many years, was pushed into third place behind Reform UK. No more.

After coming third behind the Greens and Reform, questions over the future of the party’s leader, Prime Minister Keir Starmer, now grow increasingly urgent.

Meanwhile, Reform UK came second. On their own terms, a result.

Clear defeat by Left
And yet, a clear defeat by the Left. Its candidate, Matt Goodwin, along with the party as a whole, will now be taking stock, disappointed that a major target constituency has rejected them.

The Greens stormed the seat and Spencer won a majority of more than 4000 despite a race sullied by dirty tricks and cynicism from a Labour Party that appeared desperate at every turn.

Tactics included an invented electoral organisation and misinformation over polling. A last ditch effort to transport Starmer to the constituency may have amounted to a final and fatal backfire.

This is the second byelection loss to the Green Party since Labour’s general election victory in 2024.

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Papua New Guinea’s Prime Minister James Marape says funding for impending byelections is not an issue.

“We are assisting the Electoral Commission with funding, I have strongly advised Electoral Commissioner to get the byelection up and running.

“Put the programme together, get to Treasury and request funding and the byelections must be done. As far as the government is concerned, we want the byelections done at the earliest.”

The election needed to be “done now”, he added.

However, Electoral Commissioner Simon Sinai confirmed the deferral of the byelections was due to lack of funding.

“We are prepared and ready to conduct byelections in the three open electorates first, Sohe in Northern, Maprik in East Sepik and Porgera-Paiela in Enga,” Sinai said.

“However, due to the cash flow situation in the country, we have to wait for the lead agencies to secure the necessary funding for us to deliver the elections.”

Three byelections delayed
Sinai said byelections in Madang, Aitape-Lumi and Dei would not proceed as initially planned until the review matters before the courts were dealt with and concluded.

The issue of writs for the byelections for three electorates in PNG were scheduled for Wednesday and this was said to be now deferred until April due to financial constraints.

PNG Electoral Commission needs K20 million to run the three planned byelections and so far no funding has been allocated.

The Electoral Commission is still waiting for the Finance and Treasury Departments to release the funds that were requested through a budget submission for six open electorates where byelections were expected to be conducted this year.

Republished from the PNG Post-Courier by permission.

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Kramer had appealed to the Supreme Court over a National Court decision not to review his application of the Leadership Tribunal decision which had cost him his seat.

The National newspaper reported that the Supreme Court, which heard the appeal on November 28 last year, had still to hand down a decision.

Kramer hopes to stand in the byelection when it eventually goes ahead.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

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The autonomous government in the Papua New Guinea region of Bougainville is finally organising byelections next month in two seats that have been without representation for many months.

The elections, in Nissan and Haku constituencies, will be held on February 22, with nominations set to close tomorrow.

The Nissan seat has been vacant since July 2021, after then-Health Minister Charry Napto and his wife and child were among seven people lost at sea when a banana boat carrying them disappeared.

The Haku seat became vacant after the death of Xavier Kareku in March last year.

The writs were issued by the Speaker of the Bougainville House of Representatives, Simon Pentanu, in Buka on Tuesday.

Pentanu said he was happy to issue the writs so that the people can exercise their democratic rights and he called on candidates to campaign peacefully and let the people decide the leaders of their choice.

Acting Electoral Commissioner George Manu said the delay was due to a lack of funding.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ. 

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz