2023-12-26 21:02:05
The Prime Minister, Elisabteh Borne, confirms this in a press release published Tuesday, December 26: following the opinion adopted by the Council of State on December 7the government will table a constitutional bill to reform the electoral body of New Caledonia, with a view to holding the territory’s provincial elections in 2024. The National Assembly and the Senate meeting in Congress will be called upon to vote on this text “in the first half of 2024”specifies Matignon.
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Given the slowness of the ongoing discussions between separatists and loyalists, supposed to write the future status of the territory and define its links with France to exit the Nouméa agreement of 1998, the executive is giving itself time: “Because political consensus constitutes the government’s priority, this reform will not come into force (…) that in the absence of a political agreement between local stakeholders concluded before July 1″said the press release.
A second text, an organic bill submitted to Parliament in the first quarter of 2024, will therefore make it possible to postpone the Caledonian provincial elections initially scheduled for May 2024. The formation of the local congress (elected for five years) and the Caledonian government depends on this ballot. , both held today by the independence movement.
Extend local mandates
Provincial elections “will be postponed until December 15, 2024 at the latest. The current mandates of the members of the assemblies concerned will therefore be extended”, explains Matignon on Tuesday. The Council of State considers, in fact, in its opinion of December 7, that a “sufficiently committed process of negotiation [vers] the signing of a new agreement replacing the Nouméa agreement would constitute a sufficient general interest goal” to extend local mandates.
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The constitutional bill will aim, for its part, to expand the population registered on the general electoral list of New Caledonia. “All citizens born or domiciled in the territory for ten years” will be able to take part in the next ballot to elect their representatives in the three provinces of Caillou.
Frozen in 2009 by constitutional derogation, in the name of the major political agreements which brought peace after the quasi-civil war of 1984-1988, the Caledonian electorate will remain restricted. But it should expand in a sliding manner to respect the principles of universal suffrage and major international texts.
The subject nevertheless remains hot at the Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front, whose militant base fears a « dilution » Kanaks in the Métis or Caldoche population.
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