SYDNEY — A former insurgent army commander has been elected president of Bougainville, the autonomous area within the South Pacific, electoral officers stated on Wednesday, and he’s set to guide talks for the territory’s independence from Papua New Guinea.
The victory by the previous insurgent chief, Ishmael Toroama, is a break from the present administration, led by President John Momis, after the federal government’s candidate was eradicated within the area’s preferential voting system.
The overall election was the primary since Bougainville voted overwhelmingly for separation from Papua New Guinea final 12 months, with Mr. Toroama defeating an open area, in line with Bougainville’s electoral commissioner.
The mineral-rich group of islands of 250,000 folks has been hampered by years of little financial progress after a decade-long civil warfare that claimed as many as 20,000 lives. The warfare resulted in 1998.
The battle was largely fought over how the earnings from the profitable Panguna gold and copper mine on Bougainville Island ought to be shared and the environmental harm it had induced.
Mr. Toroama, who was a commander within the secessionist Bougainville Revolutionary Military, later labored on the peace-and-disarmament course of.
Final 12 months’s nonbinding independence ballot was a part of a peace course of that ended the battle, though competing claims over growth rights to the long-shut Panguna mine stay.
