New Caledonia independence backers to shun referendum

Published date04 December 2021
AuthorWalter Zweifel RNZ Pacific Reporter
Publication titleHawkes Bay Today
Pro-independence parties and groups decided last month that because of the pandemic, they will stay away from the polls.

The decolonisation mechanism, at play for 30 years, will therefore reach its formal end without the full participation of the colonised people at the centre of the process.

In the two preceding referendums in 2018 and 2020, the percentage of voters backing the status quo fell from 56.7 per cent in 2018 to 53.3 per cent in 2020.

With the expected overwhelming no vote, the referendum decision will put the onus back on France to find a new way to accommodate the Kanaks’ right to self-determination.

The December date for the referendum was chosen by the French overseas minister Sebastien Lecornu in June after he dismissed calls by the pro-independence parties to hold it in late 2022.

His position echoed the consensus that the referendum date should in no way overlap with the campaign period for the French presidential and legislative elections due next year.

However, the pro-independence parties had asked Paris to honour the 2019 promise by the then French prime minister Edouard Philippe to exclude the period from September 2021 to July 2022 for the referendum.

While the anti-independence camp wasn’t keen on having another vote, its preference was a date as early as possible.

The pro-independence side grudgingly accepted the choice by France, and began readying itself for the third independence vote in three years.

In August, campaigning started but it ground to sudden halt in early September when a community Covid-19 outbreak shattered New Caledonia’s bubble, hitherto spared any pandemic-related fatalities.

A strict lockdown ensued while the virus rapidly infected thousands and killed more than 200 people, mainly indigenous Kanaks.

Vaccinations have picked up and around 80 per cent of the eligible population has had at least one jab, while about 70 per cent have had two doses.

With community gatherings banned, the pro-independence parties saw their chances to reach grassroot voters dimming and called for a postponement of the vote until late next year.

They also argued that for a population in grief, the time for political campaigning was not right.

But for Paris, the referendum machinery has been set in motion, with hundreds of security forces and their armoured personnel carriers on their way to Noumea.

Grief was not considered to be a reason to delay the vote, and Lecornu said only an out-of-control pandemic justified a postponement.

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