POLITICAL Reviews • MELANESIA 437 VANUATU
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political reviews • melanesia 437 ump’s five, agreed to form a coalition Vanuatu administration. Under the agreement, Prime Minister Maxime Carlot nup appointed Merilyn Aranhapat as Korman successfully maintained his mayor, the first woman to hold such coalition government in office through an office in Vanuatu. Once in office, the year, completing his four-year the new administration moved quickly term. They went to the polls as sched- to sack all council employees and uled in November for Vanuatu’s fourth replace them with nup supporters, a general election since independence. measure later announced to be nup The prospect of general elections policy if returned to national govern- increasingly infected government busi- ment at the general elections. This ness with undisguised electioneering, collaboration between uf and nup and much of the year’s political activ- immediately excited speculation that ity was dominated by preparations for the former anglophone partners might the poll. Although Prime Minister Kor- combine to oust the ump from govern- man demonstrated that coalition gov- ment at year’s end, despite continuing ernment could be made to work and personal animosities between some of complete a full term in office, the insta- the leaders on both sides. bility within government and, as the In parallel shadow plays, deputy year progressed, within Korman’s own prime minister and minor coalition ruling Union of Moderate Parties party leader Sethy Regenvanu was (ump) itself, became more and more forced to repudiate public reports that obvious as individuals and parties pre- his People’s Democratic Party (pdp) pared for the contest. Although often a would withdraw support from the quiet period in public life, the new year government over the large-scale sack- early presented a number of issues and ing of striking public servants. The events that continued to reverberate ump’s Alick Noel, reelected during the through the year. month as mayor of Port Vila, later in On 1 January the government intro- the year precipitated a serious internal duced a new 4 percent turnover tax, dispute in the party and litigation over recommended by an Australian-funded endorsement of his candidacy in the review of government revenues, which national elections. led to price rises as businesses passed Divisions and defections were recur- on the increases to consumers. Public rent motifs in Vanuatu’s political life as anger at the increase in prices was all parties readied themselves for the identified by some ump members of general elections. Successive party con- parliament and party officials as con- gresses, to adopt policy platforms and tributing to its failure to win an out- confirm party candidates, began as right majority in the Luganville early as January, when sixty members Municipal elections held on 31 Janu- attended pdp’s first congress. Three of ary. The major anglophone parties, its four members of parliament were Unity Front (uf) and Father Lini’s ministers, which underlined how dis- National United Party (nup), although proportionate representation had each won only four seats compared to become in the coalition’s somewhat 438 the contemporary pacific • fall 1996 shaky retention of power. As if to con- the prime minister intervened directly form to fragmenting tendencies, the to overturn a deportation order pdp Congress expelled from its ranks a against the editor of Trading Post. number of its more prominent former While publicly reaffirming the impor- Vanua‘aku Party and former nup min- tance of freedom of the press, he isterial colleagues. admonished the media that in the exer- As political tensions proliferated, cise of that freedom they should not the operations of the media came damage the social stability of the under increasingly intensive govern- nation and should understand that ment supervision. In February, Radio small island societies could not accept Vanuatu was banned from airing an the same (low) standards prevailing in interview with the opposition Unity some international capitals. Front’s leader Donald Kalpokas, and The first sitting of parliament, in Father Gerard Leymang, first secretary March, was opened by President Jean- to the prime minister, threatened to Marie Léyé Lenelcan, who castigated revoke the residency permit of the edi- the government’s tax changes and tor of Vanuatu’s independent weekly, resultant price increases, as well as fall- Trading Post, if it did not include ing expenditure on basic services to the French-language items in its cover- people, particularly health and educa- age—a threat made more worrying by tion, and exhorted members of parlia- expulsion letters issued the previous ment to spend more time (and more of month to three expatriate business- their discretionary development funds) men—raising again the latent fear of a in their electorates. revival of arbitrary expulsions. The session passed a number of Pressure on Trading Post increased bills, including one to ratify the United in March, when Finance Minister Nations Convention on the Elimina- Willy Jimmy expressed a willingness to tion of all forms of Discrimination reconsider the issue of its business against Women, for the registration of license if it published material attack- freehold title under the Land Leases ing the government, or containing Act, and a bill to create a Chamber of inaccurate and misleading informa- Commerce, with six regional offices, to tion, especially touching the personal promote foreign investment and the and private lives of leading figures. In development of ni-Vanuatu private June, freedom of the press was again at enterprise. issue and the Vanuatu government With the Beijing International warned Radio New Zealand Interna- Women’s Conference on the horizon, tional over its reporting of the resigna- the Melanesian Women’s Caucus met tions of two Australian judges from in late April to draft a Pacific Platform the Vanuatu judiciary, alleging unpro- for the conference. Minister for Justice, fessional conduct by the country’s chief Culture and Women’s Affairs and justice. Radio Vanuatu was banned Deputy Prime Minister Regenvanu, from covering the issue. having led the Vanuatu delegation to Press freedom continued to be an the Beijing Conference, followed up on issue of public policy, and in October return by establishing a steering com- political reviews • melanesia 439 mittee to examine Beijing’s Global Plan prevent uncontrolled extraction. Local of Action, work out a common plan of landowners themselves also showed a action for the advancement of women, will to resist unauthorized or unaccept- set priorities for a ten-year plan 1996– able logging practices, and on Santo 2005, and submit a report by the end took direct action against Malaysia’s of November. Santo Veneers Company by burning a Sustained perhaps by the momen- bulldozer. tum of these events focusing on the At the national level, a national status and role of women, and disgrun- code of logging practice was worked tled with their party’s failure to nomi- out and adopted, incorporating core nate any women candidates for the elements of the regional code of prac- general election, six prominent women tice being developed through the South announced in October their intention Pacific Forum. In April, 3000 hectares to run under the banner of “Women in of ancient kauri and other species Politics.” The decision to run in spite unique to Vanuatu, Fiji, and the Santa of Vanua‘aku Party remonstrations led Cruz Islands, were set aside in a prominent vp stalwart and leading reserve through a lease agreement women’s activist Grace Mera Molisa reached between the Department of to resign from the party, saying there Forestry and traditional landowners would never be a right time for women on Erromango. The agreement is in Vanuatu. for compensation to be paid to land- Despite pressure from international owners for not logging. logging interests, there was some France’s decision to resume nuclear progress toward a better-regulated testing in French Polynesia severely system for the development of the tested Prime Minister Carlot Korman’s sensitive forestry sector. A weak solidarity with other regional govern- bureaucracy and the temptation, in an ments in condemnation of the test election year, to reap benefits from the series, as well as his support for France issue of licenses resulted in permits and its role and interests in the Pacific. to harvest well beyond sustainable His reaction to the first test, and the yields. Confusion over permits, involv- wave of protest it occasioned through- ing competing claims by logging out the island countries, was to defend companies and disputes among local France’s sovereign decision and to add landowners, and restricted by an that other states had no right to inter- export ban on round logs, combined, fere so long as their own environments however, to restrict extraction to rates were not affected. However, Vanuatu well below those granted under joined the regional action committee licenses. and attended the meeting of South The commencement of a major aid- Pacific environment ministers to con- funded forestry project to monitor the sider regional reactions to the test industry and develop plans for a sus- series. Vanuatu also ultimately went tainable forestry sector, complement- along with the statement issued by ing an earlier forest inventory project, Australian Prime Minister Paul Keat- began to boost government efforts to ing, in his capacity as chairman of the 440 the contemporary pacific •