2025 Bougainvillean general election
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5 September 2025
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| Registered | 238,625[1] | ||||||||||||||||||||
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General elections were held in the Autonomous Region of Bougainville on 5 September 2025 to elect the president and members of the House of Representatives.[2] It was the first election in Bougainville to be held in a single day.[3] A total of 46 seats were contested in the House of Representatives following the introduction of five single-member constituency seats.[4] Incumbent president Ishmael Toroama was reelected after winning more than 90,000 votes.
On 6 February 2025, the Autonomous Bougainville Government announced that general elections would be held on 4 September 2025.[4] However, a day before the election, Bougainville's electoral commissioner Desmond Tsianai said that voting had been postponed to 5 September 2025, as ballot papers, which had been printed in Port Moresby, were not completed and delivered to Buka constituency on time. Tsianai also cited quality control issues with respect to serial numbers and noted that the final delivery of ballot papers to Bougainville, which had been scheduled on 23 August, was not held until 2 September, leaving regional authorities unable to distribute them to constituencies on time. The postponement will affect all constituencies except Atolls, which would vote as scheduled on 4 September.[5] Additional delays in material caused voting in Central Bougainville to be moved again to 8 September.[6]
Around 238,000 people were eligible to vote in the election.[7]
Candidates
There were seven candidates running for the presidency.[7] A total of 404 candidates ran for seats in the House of Representatives. This included 34 women. Fourteen of them stood in the three seats reserved for women, while 20 others contested open electorates.[8]
President
- Joe Lera (New Bougainville Party), member of the National Parliament of Papua New Guinea[3][9][10]
- Ishmael Toroama (Bougainville People's Alliance Party), incumbent president of Bougainville (since 2020)[3][11][10]
- Thomas Raivet (Bougainville United Front Party), former Papua New Guinea Defence Force officer[3][10]
- Sam Kauona (Independent), former Bougainville Revolutionary Army commander[3][12][10]
- Nick Peniai (New Bougainville Party)[10]
- Louis Smit (Independent)[10]
- Wilfred Higei (Independent)[10]
