Election Date Set For July 6

Vanuatu's general election on July 6 is unlikely to inject more than a modicum of temporary stability to the country's typically unstable political life.

Prime Minister Edward Natapei was forced into it following the undermining of his leadership by attacks from not just opposition politicians but also by veteran senior members of his own Vanua'aku Party (VP).

Since the once powerful VP is split factionally and other parties are wracked with quarrels, defections and faltering loyalties, it is unclear where power will lie until enough rival factions have got together to form another coalition government.

It will be just one more rocky coalition with little chance of finishing a full five-year term of office.

Weak, inefficient and in places corrupt government will continue to stunt the country's growth.

Prior to the election, parliament's speaker, Roger Abuit became acting head of state after the high court sacked the newly elected president, Alfred Massing Nalo, for failing to declare prior to his election that he was still subject to a suspended jail sentence for fraud.

The new parliament and local government council presidents will elect another president after the general election. Elections for provincial councils will occur also.

On May 10, Natapei bowed to the inevitable. He was confronted with the certainty of being brought down by a no-confidence motion against him backed by 19 Opposition MPs and nine former government supporters.

Natapei thwarted the action by asking the acting head of state, Abiut, to dissolve parliament which Abiut did.

The opposition immediately asked the chief justice, Vincent Lunabek, to rule that the no- confidence vote should go ahead but the judge rejected the argument that Abuit was ineligible to use full presidential powers because of conflict of interest, since he was also speaker and a member of parliament.

The Electoral Commission announced the July 6 election date late on the evening of May 12 soon after the chief justice's ruling.

Abuit took over as acting president three weeks earlier after the chief justice had ruled that Vanuatu's newly elected fifth president, Nalo, a former politician, was ineligible for office since he was still subject to a two-year suspended sentence for a cocoa buying fraud that he had failed to declare on becoming one of 31 candidates who contested the presidential election. The Vanuatu National Council of Women led pressure for Nalo's resignation.

After the general election, the new parliament and elections for local government councils, a new head of state will be chosen by an electoral college of MPs and local government council presidents.

Natapei's leadership began to be undermined when his leadership of the Vanua'aku Party was challenged at the party's 2003 convention by a former prime minister, Donald Kalpokas.

In November, he revamped his coalition government by replacing ministers from the Union of Moderate Parties (UMP) with ministers from NUP.

In succeeding months he sacked senior VP ministers to make way for new allies from the Confederation of Greens and a former UMP prime minister, Maxime Carlot Korman, now leader of the small Vanuatu Republican Party. These moves designed to keep Natapei in office, brought counterattacks from the UMP leader, Serge Vohor, who had been sacked as foreign minister; Kalpokas, who resigned the education portfolio and Sela Molisa, the respected finance minister, who felt impelled to sacrifice his portfolio to
make way for a Greens' replacement. Yet more factional splits occurred in various other party groupings.

Natapei's position deteriorated and the ground became ripe for a successful no confidence attack.

In addition to NUP and dissident Greens MPs, the motion for it was supported by Kalpokas, Molisa and Joe Natuman, another of the sacrificed VP ministers. The former real leader of the National United Party (NUP), Dinh Van Than, a wealthy businessman, has floated his own new party, the Vanuatu National Party (VNP), after a split in the NUP left him without support from any NUP
parliamentarians.

NUP was expected to field between 10 to 15 candidates for the election including the deputy prime minister, Ham Lini.

The National Community Association (NCA) plans to put up four. The Vanua'aku Party said all its 15 sitting MPs, including those who supported the no-confidence motion against Natapei, would get a party ticket if endorsed by their local constituency committees.

In April, armed police were sent to Tanna Island after an armed clashed between supporters of the John Frum cargo cult movement and a breakaway Christian sect, led by the self-style 'Prophet' Fred Nasse.

Some houses and a Presbyterian church were burnt down and about 25 of some 400 combatants hospitalised.

John Frum's leaders were apparently angered by the loss of some of their supporters to Mr Nasse. After some days of tension, tempers cooled and reconciliation ceremonies with exchanges of pigs were performed.