Vanuatu's MPs will vote once again for a new president after three rounds failed to pick a winner.
None of 13 short-listed candidates managed to get the required 38 of the 58 members of the Electoral College in two votes on Thursday and one on Friday morning.
After two rounds, Vanuatu's ambassador to Fiji, Nikenike Vurobaravu was in the lead with 29 votes. He extended that to 34 on Friday morning.
The former speaker George Wells is in second place with just eight votes. The other candidates have so far received less than five votes each.
Vanuatu parliament buildings Photo: RNZ/Sally Round
Obed Moses Tallis has recently completed his term as president.
An MP from the government side told local media after the second round that the government caucus was divided because nine members of the Reunification Movement of Change (RMC) for former Prime Minister Charlot Salwai didn't turn up.
The MP said Prime Minister Bob Loughman needed RMC in order to get Vurobaravu elected.
The members of the Electoral College is composed of 52 members of the parliament and the presidents of the six provincial governments.
Following the lack of the required quorum yesterday, the presiding officer Chief Justice Vincent Lunabeck, summoned the Electoral College to meet for the third round of the presidential election at 9am Friday local time.
A government backbencher told the Daily Post that if Loughman's Vanuaku Party wants its candidate elected, the party must clean its own kitchen first.
He said the wounds of the termination of MP Edward Nalial as Lands Minister and the termination of Anatole Hymack as leader of government business still lingered.