Shaky Times Ahead As Natapei Dumps Vohor

Edward Natapei...jolted by leadership challenge.

Vanuatu's main political parties including the Vanua'aku Party (VP), leader of the shaky coalition government, were shaken by a spasm of Melanesian-backstage power play last month.

On November 19, Prime Minister Edward Natapei dumped his main coalition partner, the split Union of Moderate Parties (UMP), including its leader, Serge Vohor, who had been deputy prime minister and foreign minister.

Vohor had been getting on his nerves and talking to Barak Sope, the disgraced former prime minister, about a merger of the UMP and Sope's Melanesian Progressive Party to become the Pan Melanesian Congress.

However, Natapei had been jolted by having his recent re-election as the VP's president challenged by another past prime minister, Donald Kalpokas, who asked for a second poll because, he said, there was something improper about the first one.

After dumping UMP, Natapei took six MPs from the previously opposition National United, Greens and People's Progress parties into his cabinet.

The prime minister's office wants police to investigate a document that links the UMP leader and deputy prime minister, Vohor, and another former prime minister, Maxime Carlot Korman, leader of the minority Vanuatu Republican Party, with a plan to issue government bonds to an Asian businessman.

Sope, last year jailed for fraud for three years for his part in the deal as prime minister, but quickly freed by Vanuatu's president, hoped that a November 27 by-election would restore him to the Efate rural parliamentary seat he forfeited after his conviction for fraud.

Unlike previous elections he couldn't be sure of winning. The VP was determined to keep him out of parliament. One of three other candidates for the seat was a VP man.

An unpopular tax on cheque withdrawal effective from July 1, was lumbering the government with a lot of unpopularity however, including demonstrations by non-government organisations.

The tax seems to bring in less revenue than it is worth in terms of lost political support. In September, the government said revenue from the tax on bank withdrawals averaged 4-5 million Vatu monthly‹a minute portion of the overall government revenue. Natapei said the tax would be reviewed after six months.

The government is preparing ambitious plans to lift the country's minuscule fishing industry to output, mainly tuna, to 10,000 tons of marine resources annually.

The European Union and France have agreed to revive cocoa production. A third shipment of live cattle from Santo to Asia has incurred the wrath of local abattoirs unable to obtain enough animals for the local beef market and export needs.

The Food and Agricultural Organisation has urged the government to develop the dairy industry so that dairy food imports, including milk, can be reduced rather than focusing on beef production. The government has put the domestic airline, Vanair, up for sale to local or foreign buyers and authorised the international airline, Air Vanuatu, to compete against Vanair on some major domestic routes with a new ATR-42 aircraft.