Vanuatu campaigning begins

PORT VILA – Several political parties in Vanuatu have already launched their election campaigns despite delays to the publication of the official candidates list.

The Electoral Commission was supposed to publish the names of over 200 candidates on Tuesday night this week, but that has been delayed because some government offices were slow to provide required information and relevant paper work.

Potential candidates had until Tuesday to pay government debts and application fees but there have been reports of some candidates queueing outside Treasury to pay well past the deadline.

A former prime minister and leader of the Vanua’aku party, Joe Natuman, says the former opposition bloc in the dissolved parliament is not waiting for the list to be released and has already begun its 13-day campaign.

“The campaign period is only two weeks, the longer we delay the less time there is for candidates to do their campaigning. So, as of yesterday, the campaign has already started and people are now waiting to see whose name has been approved by the commission.”

Natuman says a failed constitutional appeal does not mean he and otehr party candidates won’t be able to stand for election. In December, Natuman and 23 other opposition MPs sought to overturn President Baldwin Lonsdale’s decision to dissolve parliament, which was rejected by the Supreme Court.

There have been suggestions that the former MPs will be unable to contest the elections because they are yet to pay legal penalties.

But Natuman says they are still waiting to receive an invoice for the court action, which means they can legally contest the elections.

“We took the president to court and the court ruled that we should pay the costs of that case. We are now waiting for the lawyer for the president to submit the costs to our lawyer, so we are still waiting for that bill to come.”

To add to the confusion, Vanuatu’s electoral office says it has received applications from 10 jailed former members of parliament to contest this month’s snap election. And the four other convicted former MPs – including former prime minister Moana Carcasses – have put forward relatives or former secretaries to stand on their behalf.

The 14 MPs were jailed after they were convicted of bribery in October, which triggered a deadlock in parliament that prompted the president to call the pending snap election.

But an advisor with the electoral office, Martin Tete, says any candidate who is serving a prison term is ineligible to contest the election, and nine of the applications have already been rejected.

“We have received a note from the police with the decision of the court and we have removed all the applications from those we have received so far.”

The official end of campaigning is at midnight on January 19 with the election on the 22nd.

- PNC