Balakau, from the Kokope tribe in Wabag, was no ordinary student at St Paul’s Lutheran High School in Wapenamanda.

He had a well-developed mind which was already set on future goals and he appeared to understand a lot of things. He was easily elected by the student body to be their Student Representative Council President.

Fellow student Elias Awarin recalls how one Sunday afternoon in April 1972 Balakau surprised his friends by saying he would be prime minister of Papua New Guinea one day.

“We sat telling stories and Malipu surprised us all by saying he would be prime minister of PNG one day,” said Awarin. “We all looked at each other and then at him in disbelief because he was only a Grade 8 student. We did not know what he was talking about.”

While most of the students concentrated on their school work, Balakau was actively involved in political activities. During the 1972 national elections, he distributed leaflets for the United Party with the slogan ‘United we stand, divided we fall.’

As president of the SRC, he organised the first student protest against the headmaster in 1974, a strike that nearly ended his path to higher education.

When PNG attained independence in 1975, Balakau was studying law at the University of PNG. During his spare time, he interpreted the new Constitution for Sir Tei Abal and other illiterate parliamentarians from the Highlands region.

In 1976, he founded the United Party branch at UPNG, the first to operate at a tertiary institution. The following year he spearheaded election campaigns for Enga regional member Paul Torato and Wabag MP Sir Tei Abal.

But his involvement with United Party came to an end when Sir Tei did not accept nomination of himself as the United Party candidate for prime minister in 1977. Instead he offered the nomination to Sir John Guise in a bid to stop the Papuans breaking away. This caused the United Party, the largest political grouping in the country, to split in two.

“I had pressured Sir Tei to accept nomination of himself and not Sir John Guise but I was disappointed when he bluntly refused,” Balakau said. “We could have had the first highlands prime minister in 1977.”

Frustrated, Balakau launched the Highlands United Front (HUF) at UPNG in September 1977.

By early March the next year, HUF merged with a splinter group from the United Party which changed its name to the National Party. The late Sir Iambakey Okuk became its first parliamentary leader.

Between 1978 and 1979, Balakau was SRC president at UPNG, elading a series of crippling strikes and student protests against the national government led by Sir Michael Somare.

“The protests were engineered to soften the Somare government’s grip on power,” Balakau said. The government finally fell in 1980.

“Many parliamentarians boasted about the downfall but somebody had to be the engineer or the architect,” he said.

In 1982, Balakau stood for the Enga Regional Seat against Paul Torato.

“I will reverse the wind that is blowing up,” he had said during the campaign in a bold statement at Pindak village.

The largely illiterate population found this mind-boggling. They did not think a highlander could hope to become prime minister.

Five years later, before the 1987 national elections, Balakau came to my office with a ready smile and said, “Kaime, I am contesting the regional seat again. Please read this and convey the message to our people.”

He handed me a seven-page manuscript challenging the Engan elite to educate the masses to vote in good leaders. It read in part:

“It is discouraging for me to find that I am webbed in a world of base level politics. I cannot drill into the minds of voters a wide range of political issues affecting national politics. I find myself facing an uneducated voting majority who cannot understand and comprehend the issues affecting our province and nation.

“A post mortem of the 1982 elections reveal that I was prevented from victory because one smart Engan branded me an evil communist who would divide the wives, land, pigs and children amongst the poor and that I would ban the Seventh Day Adventist Church and introduce Sunday Law – an issue that is impossible for any politician to accomplish in a democracy like ours.

“A second factor was because a majority of people sold their votes for cash and material benefits. They exchanged their votes for vehicle rides, cash, cartoons of lamb flaps and other favours. And in doing so they were selling their highest constitutional right to vote – the very votes that would decide the future advancement of this country.

“I tend to pause and ask myself whether, I, Malipu Balakau is unqualified to be a member of parliament. At times I sit back and contemplate my school days and experiences in politics and ask myself: Is the sitting member of Enga more qualified than me?”

At the time, one of the most outspoken politicians to emerge from the Highlands region, Sir Iambakey Okuk, had succumbed to cancer. Balakau saw a vacuum to be filled.

“The sudden death of Sir Iambakey Okuk leaves a vacuum in highlands politics. The region is without a voice, a leader who was willing to speak up and be a father of highlands politics has died. It needs to be filled.

“What Engans fail to understand is that it takes no ordinary man to stand up and fight for others. Many times I have risked my neck to fight for the people with no reward. There are only a few who can commit themselves as a living sacrifice for the people.

“What Enga people lack is political education. They must be told to understand that their votes will determine the progress or regress of Enga. The province and the country are in the palm of their hands.”

Balakau had set his mind to lead the country. He saw the inequalities in job distribution and economic development in PNG and knew that the many illiterate parliamentarians from the highlands failed to see the big picture.

The people were convinced this time to elect Malipu Balakau as their regional member. And he soon became Minister for Communications. But, two years later, he was murdered by thugs before his full potential could be realised.

The first Highlands prime minister was Paias Wingti from the Western Highlands and now there’s a second one, Peter O’Neill from the Southern Highlands.

Enga has still to produce one.