2023-09-09 09:00:02
Sonia Backès, in the center, in Matignon, before a meeting with New Caledonian leaders on the future of the nickel sector, September 6, 2023. JULIEN DE ROSA / AFP
In New Caledonia, the first round of the senatorial elections will pit eight candidates against each other on September 24. The non-independenceists have an absolute majority among the 578 Caledonian voters called to vote, but it is the independentist Robert Xowie who begins this first round in a position of strength. With two seats to be filled, the election will take place by majority vote in two rounds.
Among the non-independenceists, this election takes on the appearance of a primary before the provincial elections of 2024. On the one hand, a list dubbed by the presidential majority and composed of the outgoing senator Les Républicains Pierre Frogier and the secretary of state for citizenship Sonia Backès (Renaissance). Facing them, Gérard Poadja (Caledonia ensemble, affiliated with the centrist Union in the Senate), also outgoing, and the dissident Les Républicains, Georges Naturel, will try to make their own music heard. Once mentioned, the candidacy of Sonia Lagarde, mayor of Nouméa, the capital which therefore concentrates the greatest number of voters, did not materialize.
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This division of the non-independence camp contrasts with the unity displayed during the legislative elections, just a year ago, where, with the exception of the second constituency in which the Republicans presented their own candidate, both succeeded in overcoming their antagonisms. Basically, it is the project of« hyper-provincialisation »that is to say increased power granted to the communities specific to New Caledonia which are the provinces, supported by Pierre Frogier and Sonia Backès in the discussions on the future status of the territory, which makes some of the people cringe. non-independence.
A project that carries a risk of « partition », according to his detractors, including Gérard Poadja. Kanak from the north of New Caledonia, Gérard Poadja refuses “a Caledonia other than unitary. I am in favor of permanent dialogue with the separatists, not of cutting the country in two with everyone living on their own, and that is what I want to make heard.” Opinion shared by Georges Naturel, mayor (LR) of Dumbéa, a rapidly expanding town in the suburbs of Nouméa. The one everyone in New Caledonia calls “Dédé”, inserted on the right since 1981, plays the card of the hyper-proximity of the local elected official with the major voters and denounces political backrooms, far removed from what should be, according to him, “the search for the common destiny that we want for our children”.
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