Cook Islands opposition parties stay silent on petition plans

Cook Islands opposition parties are refusing to say whether they accept the election result or if they will lodge petitions.

The general election resulted in the Democratic Party winning five seats, the United Party taking three seats and the One Cook Islands Movement gaining one seat. Both main opposition parties lost a seat between the preliminary count on August 1 and the final count on August 10.

The Cook Islands Party (CIP) secured 12 of the 24 seats in parliament which - with the support of two independents - gave it the numbers to form a majority.

United Party president Tony Tou said lodging petitions was expensive, while Cook Islands Democratic Party leader Tina Browne said putting political differences aside would help the Cook Islands "survive" over the next four years.

Cook Islands News editor Rashneel Kumar said it would be surprising if there were not any petitions.

"The bigger news normally is if we don't have any petitions. So we do expect it," he said.

CIP leader and Prime Minister, Mark Brown, said all his existing ministers would hold onto their warrants for the time being and he would wait until next week, when all members were back in Rarotonga, to decide on the makeup of Cabinet.

Support for cannabis referendum question

The Cook Islands News reported there had been strong support for a referendum run at the same time as the election, which asked: "Should we review our cannabis laws to allow for research and medicinal use?"

Editor Rashneel Kumar told RNZ the result, which saw 62 percent of voters say "yes", 35 percent say "no", with 3 percent of votes recorded as "informal", might compel the government to take "take some action" despite the referendum being non-binding.

"It'll be interesting to see what the government of the day does with the results from the referendum," he said.