the separatists come out on top in the first round of the territorial elections

2023-04-17 15:19:15

The separatist and former president of French Polynesia Oscar Temaru attends, alongside his daughter Ahuura Temaru and his lawyer Thibaud Millet, his trial for having financed by the municipality of Faa’a, of which he is the mayor, a radio station which the court said was doing “propaganda” for him and his party, in Papeete, March 2, 2023. MIKE LEYRAL / AFP

The Polynesian independence party inflicted a defeat on the outgoing autonomist government, close to the majority of Emmanuel Macron, by winning the first round of territorial elections on Sunday April 16. A narrow victory would be enough for him in the second round, on April 30, to ensure a comfortable majority in the local assembly for the next five years, and to be in a position of strength to negotiate a process of decolonization with Paris. A third candidate, the autonomist Nuihau Laurey (14.54%), disrupts the expected duel between the separatist Oscar Temaru (34.9%) and the outgoing autonomist president, Edouard Fritch (30.46%). Which will try to conquer the abstainers (39.7%), while having little chance of seducing the voters of the lists eliminated in the first round, headwind against him.

The Tapura separatists had bet on a clan vote. They had placed on their list a good part of the 42 mayors (out of 48 Polynesian municipalities) close to Edouard Fritch. The strategy worked in the small islands far from Tahiti: in the Marquesas, or on the Tuamotu atolls, voters still follow the voting instructions of their mayor. It is a failure, on the other hand, in the most populated islands: Raiatea, Moorea and Tahiti were seduced by the young candidates of the Tavini huiraatira of Oscar Temaru, a party created in 1977 but which has bet on the renewal of the political class, while softening its discourse on independence.

“It’s not an election to move towards independence, it’s not a referendum”thus declared to the Monde Tematai Le Gayic, elected in June 2022 the youngest deputy (Democratic and Republican Left-Nupes) in France, at 21, and well placed to obtain a seat in the local assembly. Its list is led by former Polynesian President Oscar Temaru, 78, but, if it wins, the party intends to elect another independence deputy, Moetai Brotherson (Democratic and Republican Left-Nupes), 53, as president.

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Because the president of French Polynesia is elected by indirect universal suffrage. The 57 representatives of the assembly will be elected in the second round, on April 30. The winning list will obtain a majority bonus of 19 seats, which will guarantee it a very comfortable majority, which will choose its president between Edouard Fritch, Nuihau Laurey and Moetai Brotherson, now favorite. Close to the New People’s Ecological and Social Union (Nupes) at the national level, this moderate separatist has managed to rally beyond his party, which has never governed for a full term. If it is sometimes contested within the radical independence electorate, it seduces young people and intellectual circles, as well as voters concerned with social justice, in an overseas community without unemployment fund or RSA.

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