2024-10-23 16:50:00
There is a consensus on the topic and it is good news in the context of the profound crisis that New Caledonia is experiencing. Inserted in the agenda of priorities, the postponement of the provincial elections of the territory, by the end of November 2025, as authorized by the Council of State, was approved unanimously by voters by the Senate on Wednesday 23 October. The day before, the Congress of New Caledonia had also validated this move – and therefore the extension of the five-year mandate of its elected representatives – with 47 votes out of 50 cast, including those of the separatists.
This is the second time that the elections, initially scheduled for May 2024, have been postponed. The objective, Prime Minister Michel Barnier indicated in his general policy statement, is to allow time for dialogue, after the independence insurrection which, since 13 May, has caused the death of 13 people, has caused the collapse the economy of New Caledonia and tore society apart.
The text that postpones the elections is an organic law proposal presented by the socialist group to the Senate on 16 September. “It’s a bit baroque, agrees Patrick Kanner, president of the group, but everyone has an interest in having the upper hand in this matter. » Logic would have dictated, in fact, that it was a government bill, but the procedure would not have allowed the deadlines necessary for the organization of the elections to be respected. The Prime Minister, informed of this constraint, therefore immediately announced the postponement and appropriately borrowed the legislative vehicle already launched.
“Strong change of method”
An expansion of the electorate to hold these provincial elections had been imposed by the previous government, without a political agreement having been found on the territory’s future ties with France, which triggered the independence mobilization, initially peaceful, then violent. “Forcing the hand of local actors led to violence”Catherine Narassiguin, socialist co-rapporteur of the text, reminded the Senate on Wednesday, for whom “the postponement is made acceptable by the significant change in method adopted by the government” on the question of New Caledonia.
The planned reform of the electoral body is abandoned. The issue will return, but in the next statute of New Caledonia, which will reform its citizenship. The objective, unattainable for two years, remains that of writing the continuation of the great decolonization agreement signed in Nouméa in 1998 between independentists and non-independenceists. If they want such an agreement to be ready by the end of 2025, the political leaders of the State and New Caledonia must unite.
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