PORT VILA – Vanuatu’s acting president has used his interim executive powers to pardon himself and 13 other MPs convicted of bribery.

Marcellino Pipite told assembled media in his office in Port Vila that the pardon was to “maintain peace and unity in Vanuatu”.

He pointed to disturbances in Solomon Islands, Bougainville and Fiji as reasons behind pardoning the nearly one-third of Vanuatu’s parliamentary members convicted of bribery on Friday.

When pressed on how the bribery convictions could spark instability, Pipite failed to answer.

The acting president said he had received advice from five lawyers to enact the pardons, and gazetted the decision on Sunday.

The move was made possible after Pipite, as parliamentary speaker, temporarily assumed the top job when president Baldwin Lonsdale left the country for a visit to Samoa.

Under Vanuatu law, the speaker acts as president when the latter is travelling abroad, and has the power to pardon anyone, including himself.

Lonsdale returned to Port Vila late Sunday afternoon, ending Pipite’s acting role.

Earlier, opposition MP Ralph Regenvanu told the ABC that police and the court’s prosecution were aware of the move and were “working on it” – in regards to stopping the process.

On Friday, the court found Pipite, deputy prime minister Moana Carcasses and 12 other MPs guilty of bribery charges.

The deputy prime minister was found to have made cash payments amounting to 35 million vat (A$452,000) to his fellow MPs last year, when they were all in opposition. The MPs were facing a maximum of 10 years in jail and were due to be sentenced on October 22.

In September, Vanuatu finance minister Willie Jimmy was convicted on two bribery charges, for breaching the leadership and penal codes, after entering a guilty plea.

His name was not amongst those pardoned in Sunday’s announcement.

Before the announcement of the pardons, Radio New Zealand reported that Vanuatu’s government had been severely shaken, and its future uncertain, after half its MPs were convicted of briberyon Friday.

The MPs were accused of having accepted bribes offered by Carcasses, who was then opposition leader, to secure their support in a vote of no confidence in the then-government.

Carcasses admitted to offering loans to MPs from his own funds, but denies they were bribes to lure support for changing the government.

But Justice Mary Sey said the evidence showed that the payments were corruptly given and accepted by MPs to influence their roles as public officials.

Large crowds gathered outside the Supreme Court to hear the verdict in the bribery trial.

The chair of Vanuatu Women Against Crime And Corruption, Jenny Ligo, says the announcement was historic and served as an important lesson to leaders.

“The people want to see that the constitution of Vanuatu, the laws of Vanuatu are upheld,” she said.

An opposition MP, Ralph Regenvanu, said the decision means most of the government’s 27 members were now convicted criminals.

He called on them to go.

“In other countries people in these positions would have resigned once they were charged. Now that they’ve been convicted it remains to be seen whether they will do that honourable thing and resign, but judging from the fact that they didn’t resign when they were charged, I

wouldn’t hold my breath about that.”

Regenvanu says the government is now hopelessly compromised, and the Prime Minister has a big decision to make.

This was before the acting president used his powers to pardon himself and the other convicted government MPs.

Under Vanuatu law, the MPs were likely to have automatically losy their seats once sentenced – and if that happened the government would have likely become a minority in the parliament.