2023-05-15 23:02:10
The independence president of French Polynesia Moetai Brotherson, elected last Friday by the local Assembly of the French territory of the Pacific, presented this Monday to the press a government composed of four women and six men.
Like the list presented by the independence party which won the territorial elections on April 30, the new executive is largely made up of men and women hitherto unknown in politics, sometimes very young. However, he did not achieve the parity promised during his campaign.
If the vice-president, also Minister of Culture, Crafts, Research and Higher Education, Eliane Tevahitua, is a long-time elected official, the Minister of Equipment and Major Works Jordy Chan, a graduate of Ponts et Chaussées, is the youngest in government at 29 and has no political experience.
Strangers and local figures
The new Minister of Youth and Sports Nahema Temarii, 32, is the director of a communication agency. The Minister of Education Ronny Teriipaia is the first aggregate of reo Tahiti (Tahitian language) and will be responsible for setting up the first immersion schools in Polynesian languages. Other ministers, such as that of Solidarity Minarii Galenon, or that of Employment Vannina Crolas, are better known figures in local politics.
The President has taken on the ministerial portfolios of International Air Transport, Equality of Territories, International Affairs, Development of the Archipelagos, Digital Economy and the Consequences of Nuclear Tests, as well as that of Tourism, the primary resource local economy.
No “witch hunt”
Moetai Brotherson also presented its interministerial disability delegate, Nathalie Salmon-Hudry. This young woman in a wheelchair was already known to the general public for having published an autobiography and defending the accessibility of public services for people with disabilities.
The Minister of Non-autonomous Persons, Minarii Galenon, indicated that 50,000 Polynesians (out of 280,000) suffered from a disability. President Brotherson has pledged that there will be “no witch hunts” in community services.
Winner of outgoing autonomist president Edouard Fritch, Moetai Brotherson promised during his campaign to restore purchasing power to Polynesians, in a community very dependent on imports and strongly affected by inflation (8.5% in 2022).
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