The 2020 New Caledonia Referendum: The Slow March to Independence?

Abstract

ABSTRACT At a second referendum in October 2020 the majority of the eligible population of New Caledonia voted to remain with France rather than choose independence. After violent conflict in the 1980s, two accords brought a process of ‘rebalancing’ over 30 years, aimed at creating a ‘common destiny’ primarily between the Indigenous Melanesian Kanak population and European settlers, culminating in a series of referendums on independence. Despite some economic development in the largely rural and regional areas dominated by Kanaks, a first 2018 referendum campaign highlighted persistent acute divisions between Kanaks who sought independence, and loyalists who preferred stability, security, and preservation of the status quo. The relatively close outcome of that first referendum, 56 per cent against independence as compared to 44 per cent in favour, was followed by a second still closer outcome, 53 per cent against and 47 per cent in favour. Whereas most of the world’s remaining non-decolonized states have avoided the path of secession or full independence, New Caledonia appeared to be edging towards independence. Nonetheless divisions were hardening. With a third referendum on independence posited for 2022, and the election of a majority pro-independence government in February 2021, New Caledonia faces the alternatives of independence, a new accord agreed between loyalists and pro-independence parties, or a future continuation of the power-sharing institutions created by the 1998 Noumea Accord.