Page 11 - Islands Business May 2023

French Polynesia French Polynesia

all those who agree to block Tavini Huira’atira.” policy. Several key ministers in the Fritch government split
As leader of the Tapura party, Edouard Fritch had replaced from governing party, including former tourism Minister Nicole
his mentor and former father-in-law as President in 2014. Bouteau, and French Polynesia’s representatives in Paris like
Since then, Flosse has been at war with his former lieuten- Nicole Sanquer and Teva Rohfritsch. Nuihau Laurey left Tapura
ant. Despite this, faced with the rising vote for Tavini, Flosse in 2020 to set up AHIP after a dispute with President Fritch
announced a change of heart last month: “It’s true that for over the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.
10 years we have been at war with each other, but I think we In last month’s poll, the Tapura party maintained strong
have to stop this war and try to come together.” support in outlying archipelagos like the Marquesas, Tuamotu-
Fritch gave four places to Flosse on the Tapura list for Gambier and Austral islands. Despite this, some small outer
the second-round run-off. However many people seemed to islands like Rangiroa and Manihi gave a majority to Tavini.
regard this temporary alliance as the last roll of the dice, and Manihi was visited by French President Emmanuel Macron
the uneasy partnership did not translate into large numbers of during his July 2021 tour of French Polynesia. COVID-free until
extra votes in most electoral districts. then, Manihi had a number of cases of coronavirus after the
President Brotherson told Islands Business that he predicted departure of the President and his entourage.
“a very short lifespan” for the Tapura / Amuitahira’a alliance: After the election, Fritch acknowledged that, “indepen-
“I think they are too old and stuck in the old ways of doing dence supporters came out on top in the first round of these
politics to realise that they have to totally change the way elections because of the division of the autonomists. The
they are thinking about politics here in our country. If you subsequent alliance of Tapura and Amuitahira’a was not
look at the Tapura group in the Assembly, almost all of them enough. Of course we feel disappointed because the majority
come from the old guard. They cannot really change their of French Polynesians are autonomist while the Assembly will
mindset.” be led by independence supporters.”
Two decades ago, to avoid instability in government, the
French government established a complex system to give bo- Generational change
nus seats in the Assembly to the largest parliamentary group. In contrast to Tapura’s woes, Tavini’s electoral surge built
At the time, Paris designed this to benefit pro-French autono- on the party’s unprecedented victory at the June 2022 elec-
mist parties, but Tavini has increased its share of the vote tions for the French National Assembly – the first time the
from 23% in 2018 to more than 44% today. With its electoral independence party had swept all three seats allocated for
victory and the bonus seats, the independence movement French Polynesia in the Paris legislature.
has a large, stable majority in the 57-member Assembly, now Alongside Moetai Brotherson, aged 53, the other two
divided between Tavini (38 seats), Tapura (16) and AHIP (3). Tavini deputies are both young. At 37, Steve Chailloux is a
reo Ma’ohi linguist and former lecturer at the University of
Tapura in trouble Hawai’i, while 21-year-old Tematai Le Gayic is the youngest
There are several reasons for Tapura’s collapse, after the person ever elected to the French National Assembly. Serving
party dominated the last local elections in 2018. The outgoing in the French parliament since 2018, Brotherson increased his
Fritch government was sanctioned by many voters angered by profile as head of the delegation of overseas representatives.
what they considered its poor management of the COVID-19 Now, as he takes up the presidency of French Polynesia, he
pandemic. Others reacted against economic policies that hit will now be replaced in the National Assembly by Mereani Reid
working people and farmers, while Tapura was also riven by Arbelot.
divisions within its own ranks. Last month, Tavini maintained its best performance on the
At the height of the pandemic in 2020-2021, French Poly- main islands of Tahiti and Moorea. They polled strongly in
nesia suffered the worst per capita rates of infection for the party’s traditional bastion of Faa’a, where Oscar Temaru
any Pacific Island country or territory. As with many Pacific has served as mayor for four decades, but advanced in other
countries reliant on tourism, the disruption of airline travel autonomist strongholds. Tematai Le Gayic led a successful
hit the economy hard, and many hospitality and hotel work- campaign in Papeete with support from young voters, and
ers lost their jobs. These hardships were exacerbated by the the independence party came within eight votes of snatching
government’s post-pandemic economic policies, such as the Punaauia from Tapura.
introduction of a value-added tax last year. Compared to the old guard of French Polynesian politics –
Public anger at the Fritch government was amplified when Gaston Flosse aged 91, Oscar Temaru at 78 and Edouard Fritch
the President and senior ministers attended the August 2021 at 71 – the election of these younger candidates highlights a
wedding of then Vice President Tearii Alpha, in breach of significant generational shift.
COVID-19 lockdown regulations. In November that year, Alpha “I think there was a real mood for change, a change of the
was fired as Vice-President after refusing to comply with political elite that people are a little bit fed up with,” Broth-
French Polynesia’s mandatory vaccination regulations. erson said. “There was the dynamic that we initiated with the
A second major problem for the pro-French government previous election to the French Parliament, where we chose
was that voters were aware of internal division after nearly a to put the youth forward. This sent a clear message to the
decade in office. Despite the strong overall vote for autono- Polynesian people that we have a lot of talented young people
mist parties last month, they are divided by personality and and it’s time for a change.”

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