Ballot comes six months after closer-than-expected referendum raised questions over French control of islands

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Voters in the French Pacific territory of New Caledonia cast ballots for their local Congress on Sunday, with separatists hoping to win a majority.

The ballot comes six months after a closer-than-expected referendum raised questions over France’s control of the strategic islands, which sit on a quarter of the world’s known supplies of nickel, a vital electronics component.

The referendum result showed 56.7% voted to stay French, a much tighter outcome than predicted.

New Caledonia votes 'non' to independence from France Read more

Under a 1998 agreement there can be two further votes on independence before 2022 in the archipelago more than 1,000km (620 miles) north-east of Brisbane, Australia.

In the outgoing local Congress, pro-independence factions held 25 of the 54 seats.

Supporters of independence for the islandsare mostly ethnic Kanaks who make up fewer than half the population of 269,000 people.

White residents – descendants of early European settlers as well as more recent arrivals – overwhelmingly want to stay French. They are joined by other Pacific minorities.

The November 2018 referendum was the culmination of the 1998 peace deal that followed a quasi-civil war between Kanaks and whites that left more than 70 dead in the 1980s. The “Noumea deal” has also paved the way for the islands to become increasingly autonomous, with wide areas of policy under the control of local authorities.

Almost 170,000 people are eligible to vote, with more than 900 candidates running.

There are 76 elected provincial representatives, 54 of whom will sit in the Congress.

Voting is restricted to the “population concerned” with the archipelago’s political future and requires that electors must have been resident at least since 1998.



