Vanuatu PM forced out of electorate seat

Updated November 27, 2009 17:53:10

The Prime Minister of Vanuatu, Edward Natapei has been forced out of parliament. Mr Natapei is currently in Trinidad and Tobago, attending the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, and has not attended this week's extraordinary sessions of parliament, called to debate the budget.
Speaker Maxim Carlot Korman says his office has not been informed of Mr Natapei's absence, and under the law, missing three sessions consecutively without giving a reason, means a Vanuatu MP loses their seat. Just last week Prime Minister Natapei expelled a number of MPs from his multi party governing coalition, including Mr Korman. But Mr Korman can only be removed by parliament during an ordinary sitting, with the next one scheduled to start on the seventh of December. Independent MP Ralph Regenvanu, says there's now intense lobbying, as parties try to gain support to challenge for prime ministerial position. He says with Mr Natapei now forced to contest a by-election, there is a good chance he will be out of office.

Presenter Pacific Correspondent Campbell Cooney
Speaker: Ralph Regenvanu, Vanuatu Independent MP

REGENVANU: For some reason of oversight he has not informed the Speaker of his absence or asked for permission to be absent. Now this is just a very small formality but there is a law in place in the country, which is the Members of Parliament Vacation of Seats Act, which says if a member of parliament is absent from three consecutive sittings he loses his seat. And that's the law that the Speaker has used to declare that the Speaker has seen he's now absent and is no longer a member of parliament.

COONEY: Now is it 100 per cent clear that Mr Natapei did not inform the Speaker or is there some uncertainty about this?

REGENVANU: That is what the government is now trying to scramble around and find out at what point a letter was submitted. I've talked to the Clerk of Parliament about this and he's clear that the letter was delivered to the Speaker yesterday afternoon after the session had been suspended at about 2:35 pm yesterday afternoon. The letter arrived about 20 minutes later, but it was after the closing of that sitting, which was the third sitting that the Prime Minister had missed.

COONEY: It looks likely then that Mr Natapei will have to follow the rules of parliament. Is that the way it's being seen?

REGENVANU: Yes because the interesting thing about this case is that the Vanuatu Party government back in 1988 I think it was, did exactly this to the current Speaker, Maxim Carlot Korman, removed him and 17 other members of the Union of Moderate Parties on this very issue of not turning up to parliament for three consecutive sittings. Maxim Carlot and the 17 other MPs, including Serge Vohor who is now one of our ministers and also Paul Telukluk, who's one of our ministers now, took the case all the way to the Court of Appeal and the Court of Appeal ruled that the Speaker was right to remove them, to lose their status of member of parliament because of three consecutive sittings being missed. So they can take it to court but the court's already set a precedent that will back the Speaker up. This is his revenge move and it's also you could say a revenge move against the Vanua'aku Pati for what they did to him and 17 other UMP MPs back in 1988. And what it means now is that parliament in the next ordinary session, which starts on the 7th of December will have to elect a new prime minister, which means we have a week now until then where there's going to be intense political manoeuvering because it could be anyone given the current status of all the parties in government. And it also means that Port Vila will go to a by-election. You could say that it is the last thing that the Vanua'aku Pati would be wanting to deal with. I'm sure you could not say that about the other parties in government.

COONEY: Is this what Vanuatu needs though?

REGENVANU: No, this is not what Vanuatu needs, mainly because it's more instability but in my mind the main thing we don't need this, the main reason we don't need it, is because it's going to cost a huge amount of money for another by-election, and we don't have the money to spend on that.

COONEY: Have we heard anything at all from Mr Natapei?

REGENVANU: No, his colleagues, the ministers from the Vanu'aku Pati are now contacting him lunchtime on Friday to find out what he wants to do.