From Eloi to Europe: Interactions with the ballot box in New Caledonia

Abstract

After violent clashes during the 1980s in the French Pacific territory of New Caledonia, a series of constitutional and electoral reforms changed the political landscape, with the independence movement Front de Libération Nationale Kanak et Socialiste (FLNKS) entering the institutions of government, and Kanak independence leaders serving in a multi-party executive alongside their conservative opponents. The 1998 Noumea Accord between the French government and opposing political leaders serves as an important example of using constitutional reform to establish multi-party government and transcend a period of conflict in a multi-ethnic society. This study describes the new Noumea Accord institutions and key features of New Caledonia's systems of governance. It also outlines the way electoral engineering under the Noumea Accord has led to unexpected consequences — fragmenting, rather than uniting, key political parties and coalitions and failing to end debates over ethnicity, voting rights and self-determination.