Vanuatu tries to solve impasse

PORT VILA – The acting speaker in Vanuatu summoned parliament to sit for its annual second session yesterday which would hopefully allow the government to pass a budget.

However, the government will be short 14 MPs who are currently locked up in jail.

The jailed MPs have lost their parliamentary seats after their appeal against their convictions for bribery was rejected by the country’s highest court on Friday.

The Court of Appeal also dashed the government’s hopes of remaining intact by dismissing the convicted MPs’ appeal against President Baldwin Lonsdale’s decision to revoke their self-imposed pardon.

Government MP Marcellino Pipite pardoned himself and the other MPs while he was acting president in Lonsdale’s temporary absence overseas, and had argued that Lonsdale didn’t have the power to overturn the pardons.

The rulings by the court means the MPs now have no other means of appeal, and will have to serve their prison sentences of up to four years.

The parliament has been at an impasse since the MPs’ convictions last month, with prime minister Sato Kilman – who has not been embroiled in the bribery and pardoning scandals – refusing to stand down, but the opposition not having the numbers to force a motion of no confidence.

Media reports say the government and the opposition spent Saturday meeting to try and reach a solution to end the impasse ahead of president Baldwin Lonsdale’s Sunday deadline. Lonsdale had threatened to dissolve parliament if a solution was not reached.

The opposition had proposed forming a government of national unity until next year’s election, and has also offered Sato Kilman its support in order to pass a budget in the meantime.

“It’s essential that we pass the budget,” said Opposition MP Ralph Regenvanu. “The government has not called the second ordinary session but the opposition has informed the prime minister that the opposition will support the budget on the floor of parliament.

“Even though the government doesn’t have the majority, we will back the government up to make sure the budget goes through to meet all the various requirements to allow the country to function.”

Amidst the political chaos, the chief executive of Vanuatu’s National Council of Women says the country’s male politicians must recognise the rights of women to be in parliament.

The NGO staged a forum last week to help women planning to stand in the next election, due next year.

Leas Cullwick says they want to make women aware of what they need to do to be effective candidates.

She says they will need reserved seats to be set up as laid out in the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women, or CEDAW.

Cullwick says the current system of political parties forces women to contest as independents.

“The men and the political parties – there is no accountability and transparency in their actions, so the only way forward, the women see it, is to apply the CEDAW Convention Article 4 of the special temporary measure, to be enforced.”

- PNC sources