I've stayed out of the debate as I think:
- I have insufficient knowledge of the characters, motives, interests and machinations involved to make any kind of informed prediction. Much of these are unobservable.
- Even if I had, I'm unlikely to have the right interpretation framework even if I had 1 above.
- PNG politics seems the outcome of a host of personal relations, hidden interests and machinations, that is, to a considerable extent random and insofar it's not, see 1 above.
However, there is some stuff we do know:
- O'Neill strongly and publicly backed IOC on more than one occasion. He's now PM again
- His party has gained in the election and his governing majority is much more comfortable
- Duma's party has lost
- That is, unlike in the previous government, should Duma and his party leave this one, it can still comfortably continue to govern.
That is, Duma's position, even if he returns to DPE, is considerably diminished both through loss of votes and, more importantly, through loss of hold-up power.
Given that it isn't at all sure that Duma would be against InterOil hooking up with the likes of JKM or Exxon, I don't really think we have much, if anything, to fear, even in the case he should return.
That vision is apparently shared by all the big shareholders by the way, even before anything was known about the election outcome none of these sold in any meaningful way and Chandler build up a 15% position.
I think we, despite the unfamiliarity and unobservability of much of PNG politics (in my view), can draw considerable comfort from that.