[1][2][3] Marape entered the 2022 elections under the banner of the Pangu Party and won the most seats, while still being far from a majority.

After obtaining his honours degree, he became Acting Assistant Secretary of Policy with the Department of Personnel Management from 2001 to 2006.

Marape first contested the Tari-Pori seat at the 2002 election for the People's Progress Party, when voting in the Southern Highlands Province was cancelled due to widespread violence.

[8][9] He challenged the result in the Court of Disputed Returns, but both his initial petition and a subsequent appeal were rejected.

[2] On 11 April 2019, he resigned as Minister of Finance but remained a member of People's National Congress and the Government.

[16] On 17 May 2019, the Ombudsman Commission recommended a leadership tribunal to judge O'Neill and Marape on the UBS loan to acquire shares in Oil Search Limited.

[19] Marape emerged from the succession struggle with 26 MPs who returned to the PNC from opposing parties.

A motion of no confidence in the Marape government could be mounted after 30 November as the grace period for a new cabinet expired then.

Peter O’Neill had fronted with Namah the opposition movement and brought a case before the Supreme Court to declare the budget sitting on 17 November unconstitutional.

[22] The most important issue in this meeting was filing a motion of no confidence with the Private Business committee by Belden Namah.

[25] Marape presented a confident New Year's Message in which he also stressed the generational change in PNG politics.

[28] Marape entered the 2022 elections under the banner of Pangu Party and won 38 of the 115 seats declared.

He was as leader of the largest party entitled to form the government and left his cabinet virtually unchanged.

[29][30] In 2024, another vote of no confidence was proposed by the opposition, but stalled after the attorney general went to the Supreme Court while it was being debated by a parliamentary committee on 14 February.

[33] James Marape is a member and leader of the Huli people, one of the country's largest tribes and ethnic groups.