New Caledonia votes in tense final referendum on independence from France

The Pacific Territory of New Caledonia voted Sunday in a third and final referendum on independence from France with a campaign marked by angry demands to suspend voting due to the Covid pandemic.

The territory, 2,000 kilometers (1,250 miles) east of Australia, received three independence referenda under a 1988 agreement aimed at easing tensions on the islands.

Having rejected a break with their former French colonial masters in 2018 and then again last year, the territory’s 185,000 voters are asked for the last time: “Do you want New Caledonia to access full sovereignty and become independent?”

The vote comes against the backdrop of increasingly strained ties between Paris and its regional allies.

France is considered a major player in the Indo-Pacific thanks to overseas territories such as New Caledonia.

President Emmanuel Macron has insisted that the French state does not take sides in the referendum, except to guarantee fair and smooth procedures.

“The day after (the vote), whatever the outcome, there will be a shared life” between New Caledonia and France, he said on Thursday.

The polls opened at 7:00 am local time (2000 GMT on Saturday) and were due to close at 6:00 pm local time (0500 GMT on Sunday) and the results were expected a few hours later.

The Pacific powerhouse Australia enraged France in September by ditching a huge submarine contract in favor of a security pact with Britain and the United States.

Behind the dispute lies the growing role of China, and experts suspect that an independent New Caledonia could be more receptive to Beijing’s advances, which are motivated in part by an interest in the territory’s vast nickel reserves.

China is already the largest single customer for New Caledonia’s metal exports.

China’s ‘pearl necklace’

“If the French safeguard disappears, all elements will be ready for China to permanently establish itself in New Caledonia,” said international relations analyst Bastien Vandendyck.

Other nations in the region, including Fiji, Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea, had already become “Chinese satellites,” Vandendyck told AFP.

“All China needs now to complete its pearl necklace at Australia’s doorstep is New Caledonia,” he said.

Proponents of independence are boycotting Sunday’s vote, saying they want it postponed until September because “a fair campaign” with high numbers of coronavirus infection is not possible.

New Caledonia’s 270,000 residents were largely spared during the first phase of the pandemic, but have suffered close to 300 deaths from Covid-19 since the recent appearance of the Delta variant.

The French government has rejected the lawsuit, saying the spread of the virus has slowed and the infection rate has dropped to a modest 80 to 100 cases per 100,000 people.

The independence movement has still threatened not to recognize the result of the referendum and promised to appeal to the United Nations to cancel it.

The French minister in charge of overseas territories, Sebastien Lecornu, said that while it is “a democratic right” to refuse to vote, the boycott would not affect the “legal validity” of the referendum.

A cyclone warning was issued on Saturday to complicate voting as a tropical depression loomed.

‘War declaration’

Meanwhile, the pro-French camp has asked supporters to come forward, fearing that the boycott of the pro-independence parties will lead them to stay home with victory as a foregone conclusion.

“It is important that the mobilization of non-independence supporters remains absolute, to show that they are in the majority and united in their desire for New Caledonia to remain part of the French Republic,” said Thierry Santa, president of the conservative Rassemblement. -LR party.

In June, the different political parties agreed with the French government that the referendum, whatever its outcome, should lead to “a period of stability and convergence” and be followed by a new referendum in June 2023 that would decide on the “project. “from New Caledonia. people want to chase.

But hopes for a smooth transition were shaken when the main indigenous independence movement, the FLNKS, called the government’s insistence on going ahead with the referendum as “a declaration of war.”

Observers fear that the renewed tensions may even spark a return of the kind of violence that was last seen 30 years ago.

The pro-Paris side won the 2018 referendum with 56.7 percent of the vote, but fell to 53.3 percent in the 2020 elections.

(AFP)