Major reshuffle of Vanuatu's government
Updated
Vanuatu's Prime Minister Edward Natapei has expelled three minority political parties from his coalition government, and brought the alliance of opposition MP's into power. Amongst the MP's who have lost cabinet positions are former prime ministers Ham Lini and Maxime Carlot Korman, and senior MP's James Bule and Patrick Crowby. Back in government is Sato Kilman as deputy prime minister, a position he previously held under the prime ministership of Mr Lini. Also in government, as a backbencher, is Ralph Regenvanu, an independent MP, who has been a strong critic of how Vanuatu has been governed, including concerns about the job being done by his new leader, Edward Natapei.
Presenter: Pacific Correspondent Campbell Cooney
Speaker: Former Vanuatu independent opposition MP Ralph Regenvanu
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REGENVANU: Six parties formed the governing coalition of Prime Minister Edward Natapei. The Prime Minister effectively fired three, four parties, he fired the National United Party, the Vanuatu Republican Party and the Nagriamel Party. So he got rid of three parties out of the six, and he brought in the alliance bloc, which is effectively the whole opposition of 16 members of parliament who forms a bloc called the alliance. So the whole opposition was brought in to replace the National United Party, the Vanuatu Republic and the Nagriamel Party, who have now been pushed out into opposition. So the leader of the opposition, the Honourable Sato Kilman, who is the leader of the alliance group is now the deputy Prime Minister under the Prime Minister Natapei.
COONEY: In that alliance group is there any number of parties or are they all independent?
REGENVANU: The alliance bloc consists of the Peoples Progressive Party, the Green Party and the Namangi Aute Party, Shepherd's Alliance Party, the Vanuatu National Farmers Federation Party and a few independents.
COONEY: You mentioned the alliance bloc but they are made up of different parties, how is that working, it's just a little bit confusing there?
REGENVANU: The alliance bloc was formed shortly after the elections last year, September 2008. It was formed shortly after the elections to provide a counter-balance to the other big parties. So it's a confederation of smaller parties and independents, but it has been an alliance bloc, it has been perhaps the most stable bloc in the parliament to date. It has 16 members which it's always had, and so it is going into the government as a single political entity and it is taking the deputy prime ministership plus three other ministries, and also the speaker of parliament.
COONEY: Are you part of that alliance bloc Mr Regenvanu?
REGENVANU: Yes I'm part of the alliance bloc.
COONEY: Are you going to be taking a role in cabinet or in government?
REGENVANU: No not in cabinet.
COONEY: What about in government?
REGENVANU: Well we are in government now as the alliance party, so…
COONEY: You don't have a portfolio or a role that I suppose is my question?
REGENVANU: No, no, not in cabinet.
COONEY: Are you looking for one?
REGENVANU: No.
COONEY: What's your feeling about this move? What has driven this to happen?
REGENVANU: Basically what's driven this to happen is the Vanua'aku Party's dissatisfaction with their key partner, National United Party, which earlier this year lost half its members who joined the alliance. So it has greatly reduced in numbers since the initial formation of the government 12 months ago. And despite having greatly reduced numbers, it has retained the portfolios, the sharing of the portfolios between the different parties in government up until yesterday with very skewed, and there was a great dissatisfaction, there was an expectation for many months that the Prime Minister would reshuffle ministers to bring the number of ministers per party into some sort of proportional fairness. It was basically just skewed sharing of portfolios and parliamentary positions and so on that hadn't been addressed for many, many months. Just last month the National United Party and the Vanuatu Republican Party formed a new bloc within the government, and then just last month also the Vanuatu Republican Party and the National United Party approached the alliance group to form a new government.
COONEY: It does sound like Mr Natapei could see some writing on the wall here, that unless he made those changes and took those onboard then perhaps his government and his leadership would not be a long term thing?
REGENVANU: Yes effectively by doing both by this move that he's done he's saved his government because they would have gone very shortly.
COONEY: The people who are out of parliament, there's some pretty powerful players here, former prime minister Ham Lini, Maxime Carlot Korman, Patrick Crowby, James Bule, these are pretty long term and pretty powerful players in Vanuatu politics. Would it be fair to say that we perhaps have not heard the last of this?
REGENVANU: Absolutely, I mean there's always going to be instability in Vanuatu politics and the opposition's already going to be looking to get in by motions of no confidence or reshuffling or whatever. I do think however that the current, the new formation is a lot more stable than the previous one.
COONEY: How big a job is it going to be and how important do you feel it will be a role for yourself and other politicians to make sure that the leader, Mr Natapei and others who are going to be in cabinet stay true, that they do the right thing by their people and try and avoid the problems that have dogged Vanuatu politics in the past?
REGENVANU: That is our job as backbenchers, in government, that is effectively our job and we'll be trying our best.
