New Caledonia’s Congress in session on 17 January 2024. Photo: NC la 1ère
New Caledonia's Congress has endorsed the postponement of provincial elections that are now no longer to be held in May 2024 as initially scheduled, but not later than 15 December this year.
The endorsement was acted last week: 38 Congress MPs voted in favour of the postponement and 16 against, also revealing clear divisions within the pro-independence FLNKS umbrella.
The endorsement comes as part of preparations to a French government Bill, currently being drafted and to be tabled soon in the French Parliament (in the shape of an "organic law"), to effectively postpone the provincial polls in New Caledonia.
It is also closely linked to New Caledonia's future political status and several sensitive issues such as the "unfreezing" of the French Pacific entity's electoral roll for local elections and far-reaching talks on its future status.
The modifications to the electoral roll would necessitate an amendment to the French Constitution, which France said it was planning to table some time during the first quarter of 2024, as recommended by a State Council lengthy advice requested by the French government.
Organic law and Constitutional amendment in the pipeline
The postponement would also allow more time for ongoing political talks on New Caledonia's future to come up with some kind of a consensual stance regarding New Caledonia's future, after the 1998 autonomy Nouméa Accord was now deemed to have arrived at its conclusion.
Those talks, convened several times in Paris and in Nouméa over the past two years by French Home Affairs and Overseas minister Gérald Darmanin, have not yet gathered all components of the political landscape.
One of the main components of pro-independence FLNKS, the Union Calédoniennes - UC - is still refusing to participate in the inclusive round table.
On this specific issue, Darmanin has travelled to New Caledonia half a dozen times since 2022.
The "unfreezing" of the local electoral roll would allow voters who have resided in New Caledonia for over ten years to cast their votes in local (such as provincial) elections, a move strongly opposed by some pro-independence components such as UC.
Other components of the FLNKS, such as UPM (Union of Melanesian Parties) or PALIKA (Kanak Liberation Party), have voted in favour of the postponement and have also taken part in the politically inclusive talks.
Those provincial elections (to choose members of New Caledonia's three provincial assemblies - North, South and Loyalty Islands group -) also have a direct impact on the makeup of the Congress, where the representation reflects the regional assemblies' makeup and eventually decides the makeup of the local government and its President (currently pro-independence Louis Mapou).
UC has been persistently condemning what it terms France's "forceful" ways to apply the electoral change.
UC had organised a peaceful demonstration in front of the Congress when debates were ongoing about the postponement of local elections.
The "frozen" roll, established as part of the Nouméa Accord prescriptions to maintain "political balances", barred the local elections to only people who were either direct descendents of indigenous Kanaks, born in New Caledonia or had been established there before 1998.
The "unfrozen" version would still maintain some restrictions, but to a lower extent, to the list of citizens eligible to vote.
French precautions and goals
"Our objective is to foster a dialogue on (New Caledonia's) institutional future, which has become necessary by the fading out of the Nouméa Accord. (The postponement) aims at giving time to dialogue (...) to come to fruition without being subject to the immediate pressure of an election that would come too near", French High Commission in New Caledonia's Secretary-General Stanislas Alfonsi stated before the Congress.
He added that the French State's goal was to bring about "a political agreement that can translate into texts in a future as near as possible, but above all to avoid that this agreement could be the subject or the motive for frustrations or bitterness on the part of those who will have to sign it".
The constitutional amendment, as drafted, however takes precautions and follows the advice issued by the French State Council on 7 December, 2023, French national daily Le Monde reveals.
The daily quotes what it describes as Article 2 of the Constitutional draft which, in an apparent French wish to give time to local politicians, says that if voted by France's Congress (a gathering of both Houses of the French Parliament, both the National Assembly and the Senate) with a required majority of three fifths, the amendment would come into force on July 1st, 2024, but only if "an agreement on New Caledonia's political and institutional evolution fails to be concluded before that date (1 July) between the partners of the (Nouméa Accord) signed in Nouméa on 5 May, 1998".