Election Day

Written Sept. 2, Vanuatu National Election Day:

(Pictures from top to bottom are: Pele Island polling station (the primary school); The inside of the polling station showing the privacy booth and the yellow booklets are the rip off candidate papers; Villagers getting an awareness from election official; Villagers checking out the election awareness posters; An election awareness poster; Barry posing for me with his election registration card)


For the last few months conversations in the village and nakamals has been buzzing incessantly about… The Election. Ni-Vanuatu, in general, are already very interested in politics so you can imagine how as the election got closer this topic took over all other things. The election is to elect members of Vanuatu Parliament, set up based off the British Westminster system. The Prime Minister, the head of state, is voted on by the Parliament and PM then chooses half of the country’s Ministers like Ministers of Trade, Education, Lands, Health, and so on… The second place party gets the Deputy PM job, and he chooses half the ministers as they have a coalition government system. The two main parties decide who gets to elect what Ministers, I believe, based on their interests.
The Vanuatu President is more of a figurehead, but he does have some powers such as veto of legislation. He is voted in by the members of Parliament and the six Presidents representing each of the Vanuatu provinces. There are 52 seats in Vanuatu Parliament, 10 of which belong to Efate and the near shore islands of Lelepa, Moso, Nguna, Pele, and Emao. The Vila municipality has 6 seats and rural areas in Efate and nearshore areas are lumped into one district that has 4 seats.
This last statement has been the basis of most political conversation on North Efate and offshore islands in the months leading up to the election. Many people from North Efate and the nearshore islands believe that they should have at least their own seat in Parliament. Why? Politicians from South Efate continually win the four seats that leave people in the North and nearshore islands feeling they are either underrepresented or not represented at all. Basically they say that all Man South come in with their thick pocketbooks, campaign, win the votes, and make their only trips to the region during election time. South Efate politicians are much more unified and experienced in the Vanuatu political game, and people from the North continually vote for them. So there is a big push for all Man North and nearshore islands to for vote North candidates. The problem is that there is very little unity for politicians in the North region. Nguna alone has at least 5 candidates with another 6 or candidates on mainland North Efate. On North Efate two brothers are running for two different parties! From what I’ve heard the South candidates have condensed their candidates to about 5 or 6 big ones that are set to take it.
This lack of party unity in the North is not unique to this region as Vanuatu has at least 20 something parties and many independent candidates in this election alone. People often ask me if the US has that many parties. My reply is usually something like, “Yes, and more, but there are just a handful of parties that actually win seats in elections as these are the parties with the sway, unity, and money to make it happen.” Vanuatu parties, few before Independence, split into smaller factions as disagreements arose not long after Vanuatu was free from colonial rule. Many people I talk to seem confused over what one party actually stands for over another. Something not unique to Vanuatu, but party platforms seem murkier here.
Many people in my village and area have been very interested with the upcoming US election as well and love hearing about our political system and voting system. I was just describing the electoral college to a few people yesterday. They all keep referring to Obama as “The US’s next president.” I usually say something like, “Not yet, and McCain will be no easy competitor, but I hope you’re right.” I had to tell many people at many times that Obama and Clinton weren’t in a Presidential race, but one for the Dem. Party ticket, and then describe the primary election system. I’ve got my absentee app. handed in so hopefully that goes through well and I’ll be able to vote in November. Although, it doesn’t look my President vote will mean much as it usually doesn’t being registered in California. I should set up residence in Florida or Ohio.
There is no absentee voting in Vanuatu. If you are out of the country or unavailable to vote at your station you can vote by proxy. You have to send in an application, and then you appoint a friend or family member to vote for you.
But anyway back to the North Efate Parliament seat issue. In the last election in 2004 politicians from the South swept the Efate Rural district with three of them from the village of Ifira (lot of money and power in that village of about 1000 people) and one from the village of Mele (biggest village in Vanuatu at ~2000+ people). If you were to base districting for Efate Rural on population numbers alone for North vs. South, North and nearshore islands would be entitled to at least one of those four seats. Another item that angers some people from the North is lumping some of these villages in the South as rural areas. Most of these big villages in the South: Ifira, Pango, Mele, etc. are attached to the Vila power grid, are right off the sealed road, and not more than 15 minutes drive from the heart of Port Vila. Some might even call these places suburbs. Now compare this with even the closest (to Vila) North and nearshore villages and you’ll find villages that have no grid power, dirt roads, and around a 40 minute drive to Vila. Islands like Emao, Nguna, and Pele take at least 2hrs. to get to Vila via a boat to dirt road drive transfer.
Now, I haven’t gotten too wrapped up in this issue, hearing mostly one side of the argument, and not being a citizen of this nation, but it’s hard not to see the validity in some of Man North’s points. Although, it seems as long as people from the North continue to vote for South candidates and/or dividing their votes among too many North candidates this South dominance in rural affairs and districting is likely to continue. When I ask people if they think a Man North will grab a seat in this election they don’t seem to have hopeful reactions. One of the guys running from the North is a guy that is very interested in sports development on North Efate and helped Javi and me with a little guidance on the N. Efate sports project. I’d vote for him on that issue alone, but I am very biased on this issue.
So in the couple weeks leading up to today there were countless rally campaigns cycling through Nguna and Pele. Basically, a candidate and his team would get driven by boat or truck or both to the village, and embark on about an hour or two of rallying with a megaphone or “hailer” as they’re called here. The whole thing is pretty annoying in my mind as it makes these villages shut down and wait for these people to come (usually way late) and greet them well with salu salus and small ceremonies. I have some vol friends in Vila who were being kept up at night by cars driving by, bellowing out "Vote for so and so..." things over loud speakers.
I really had my nerves tested one day as we, MPA staff and I, were set to hold a workshop in a village on Nguna and were given this day to work with the village months in advance. One of our staff members is the chairman of that village council, yet started a leave of absence from his chairman post a couple weeks ago as he will be running for an Area Counselor position in the SHEFA Province November elections. Before he left he told the guy that he was handing the power over to that this MPA workshop was set to go and to make sure the rally campaigns don’t interfere with it. So what happened? The day we arrived in the village to give the workshop we found out that the village had scheduled three rally campaigns to come. So the village kept saying we were going to start and then another campaign came.
When the campaigns came I refused to listen to them as I pretty pissed. Ronneth, another staff member came up to me as I was reading a book not far outside the rally activity in somewhat a motion of open defiance. He asked why I wasn’t listening to the rally. I told a partial truth, “I’m not voting, and I never watch these things for candidates in the US. Most of them are saying the same noise. Debates and looking at that candidates history and legislation voting record is where its at.” He nodded and then I asked why he wasn’t watching the rally. He shook his head, laughing and muttered, “I’m sick of these campaigns.” One of my favorite viewpoints on the whole rally thing has come from a friend of mine in my village. I saw Alec (a guy in his early thirties) wearing a new shirt that one of the political parties gave him and asked him about it. He said he had gotten the shirt from a recent rally, and I asked him if he supported the party. Alec, “No. When the man gave me this shirt I immediately told him thank you for the shirt but don’t you think that has bought my vote (roughly from Bislama).” Awesome!! I like that kind of straightforwardness.
Back to the MPA workshop: At least we got to work in the second day’s activities, the household survey giving training, to a slot in that evening. The next day we did the first day’s activities yet got a meager turnout for something that was supposed to include most of the village. I hope that least the survey results will be good.
One thing I like about Vanuatu’s campaign policy is the two or three day moratorium on campaigning before the election. It’s been nice for some space between rallies and the election. Today I woke up and went down to the polling station before it opened to snap a few shots before it opened. I also wanted to be there as the core group of people would be arriving in the early morning.
Their actual polling set-up is not that different then our own with a little less technology. Voters are given some tips from the polling officer and posters posted outside. They then show their voting card to an official inside. The card has no photo ID yet has official stamps of verification that this person is a registered voter. The voter than grabs a booklet that has rip-out pieces that feature candidate names and the candidate’s picture (so you can truly vote on a candidate’s looks). Sori long olgeta we pija blong yufala i no gud tumas. The voter does this ripping and putting the four candidates’ slips in an envelope behind a curtain (to the left of the blackboard in the picture). The voter then comes out, gives all the unused slips to the vote official, and the envelope of voted-for candidates goes in the locked wooden box on the table. You’ll see in the outside picture of the school the policeman sitting down on the right. Each polling station supposedly has one to keep order and such. I heard the officials and police vote the day before as many of them are from areas different from the post they are manning. They are also the only people working today as today is a National Holiday.
So one last thing on vote registration. About two months ago I saw an article in the paper put out by the voting board listing about 60 people from Vila that had tried to register as residents of a village in Nguna. Yes, they are originally from that village, but voting is based on residence. So I got to thinking how do they sort this out and what potential is there of stacking Vila residents into the rural elections to push it one way or another. I guess the local area counselor is responsible for looking through the list and saying who lives there and who doesn’t. This can’t be an easy task to sort out as just the Nguna & Pele district has over 1000 people. That means they have to know all of these people and if these people actually live there as there are no mail or tax record-type stuff to back this up. The people I talked to seem to think he or she does know all of this. OK but I’m skeptical, and what if the counselor has a favorite candidate of his in mind?
By the time I actually post this I should know who won the elections. Results usually take a couple days here. I’ll try to update this with some results.

**Update: Man South swept the election again and people aren't surprised. The current talk is who will be the next PM? The old PM is one of about 6 that are rumored to take it.