Start date May 10, 2009 | ||
Parliamentary elections were held in New Caledonia on 10 May 2009. Voters in New Caledonia chose 76 candidates for the French territory's three provincial assemblies. Fifty-four of these 76 members were also to become members of the Congress of New Caledonia. Members of the Congress of New Caledonia serve 5-year terms in office upon their election.
The Labour Party, which had been founded in 2007 as the political arm of the pro-independence Union of Kanaky Workers and the Exploited (Union syndicale des travailleurs kanaks et des exploités, USTKE), contested the elections for the first time and hoped to gain 12,000 votes and a seat. Due to splits in the two main parties of the anti-independence front, the Rally for Caledonia in the Republic and Future Together (from which Caledonia Together split off in October 2008), the main pro-independence party, Kanak Socialist National Liberation Front, hoped to become the largest party in these elections.
Election issues
The new territorial Congress will have to decide how to implement the autonomy provisions of the Noumea Accord of 1998. Apart from the island's political future, the economy and New Caledonia's high cost of living were the main issue in the election campaign.