Norman Brewer, Auckland
In elections on May 9 in New Caledonia (Kanaky) and on May 23 in French Polynesia (Te Ao Maohi, also known by the name of its main island, Tahiti), both pro-French ruling parties unexpectedly found themselves unseated. In another parallel, both pro-French presidential candidates failed on June 10.
With only a four-year interruption, 72-year-old Gaston Flosse and his Tahoeraa Huiraatira party ruled French Polynesia for the last two decades. He was defeated by independence leader Oscar Temaru's Union for Democracy (UDP), a coalition built around the pro-independence organisation Hiti Tau ("the time has come to react").
Temaru was also a central figure in the Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific Movement in the 1990s, campaigning against nuclear testing on the Mururoa Atoll.
The UDP won 26 votes — two less than Flosse's party. But Temaru secured the support of three elected "autonomists": Phillippe Schyle, whose "autonomy party" Fetia Api has joined the UDP, former tourism minister Nicole Bouteau and Chantal Flores from the Austral Islands.
The resulting 29 votes elected UDP candidate Anthony Geros as assembly president, whereupon France's overseas minister Brigitte Girardin threatened to cut off funding to French Polynesia should Temaru be elected president. France also sent in an additional 120 anti-riot police.
However, one day before the presidential election, Gaston Flosse pulled out, leaving Temaru as the only contender. Schyle claimed that Flosse had offered several positions to his party in return for voting for Flosse as president.
The governing UDP has assured France that it will refrain from moving towards independence in the near future, foreseeing instead a gradual shift, culminating in a popular vote on the issue in several years' time. On election night, Temaru said that "Tahiti might not be [economically] ready for an independence referendum before 10 or 15 years from now".
It receives about $1 billion per year from France. Four non-independence members of the one-seat-majority coalition have now formed an autonomy group.
Flosse tried to legally challenge the elections, but his request was rejected by France's council of states within one day, after the Temaru-friendly French Socialist Party objected to the government's "turn off the taps" threat.
On June 10, Flosse once again emerged as a bad loser, when his party stayed away from the presidential election, thus invalidating it, as a three-fifths quorum was required. He subsequently lost one defector to Temaru.
On June 14, Temaru became the first pro-independence president of a French colony (when a simple majority quorum was required), gaining 30 out of 57 votes.
According to the Tahitipresse news agency, the new coalition government program includes the gradual increase of the minimum wage, work days that don't start before 9am, an improvement of social services, political decentralisation, educational reform, and a revision of the new autonomy statute after French Polynesia was declared a French Overseas Country in March.
New Caledonia
The party that ruled New Caledonia for the last quarter of a century, Jacques Lafleur's RPCR (Rally for Caledonia within France), now only holds 16 of the 54 parliamentary seats. But unlike French Polynesia, where pro-independence and pro-autonomy forces took power, the crisis in New Caledonia has been caused by a split in the ruling party. The split-off L'Avenir Ensemble (Future Together) now also holds 16 seats.
Disunity in the pro-independence camp — made up of UNI-FLNKS (Kanak Socialist National Liberation
Front) and Union Caledonienne — also dropped five seats to 18. The fascist National Front holds four seats.
The government has to reflect the proportions of the Congress, and the June 10 elections saw two women take leading positions in the 11-member government — a first for the Pacific Islands. Marie-Noelle Themereau of L'Avenir Ensemble was chosen as president, and FLNKS activist, poet and writer Dewe Gorodey was re-elected as vice-president. However, just hours later the government collapsed when all RPCR members resigned. New elections are due on June 24.
French Socialist Party secretary general Francois Hollande linked the election results in French Polynesia and New Caledonia to the April French elections, where all but one of metropolitan France's regions shifted to the left.
According to Oceania Flash news service, Hollande noted: "First, Lucette Michaud-Chevry in Guadeloupe (French Caribbean), then Jacques Lafleur in New Caledonia, and now, this is Chirac's overseas network's third pillar that has just collapsed." The French Socialist Party recently signed an alliance memorandum with Temaru, backing his pro-independence movement.
For up-to-date news visit <http://www.tahitipresse.pf/>
From Green Left Weekly, June 23, 2004.
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