After a vacation here in Hawaii, Barack Obama has flown onto French Polynesia, where he reportedly plans to work on his memoirs for a month or so. The former president will stay at the resort on Tetiaroa, the island once owned by Marlon Brando.
French Polynesia is getting ready to vote in next month’s French Presidential election, though, as we hear from Neal Conan in today’s Pacific News Minute, without one of their own on the ballot.
Last month, we reported on Oscar Temaru’s campaign to qualify as a candidate in the Presidential election. The long-time independence leader acknowledged that he had no hope to win, but said if he won the most votes in French Polynesia, that would amount to a unilateral declaration of independence. Exactly how he planned to persuade France and his Tahitian rivals to agree to that wasn’t exactly clear, but it’s now a moot point.
To qualify for the ballot, Temaru needed the signatures of 500 elected French officials and received just 109. A disappointed Oscar Temaru advised his followers to boycott the election.
In years past, Independence-minded Tahitians supported the French Socialist party which backed self-determination for French Polynesia until Francois Hollande reneged on that pledge after his election in 2012. This time around, Hollande decided not to run for re-election and his socialists trail badly in the polls. Among the front runners, far right candidate Marine Le Pen of the National Front. She declared support for increased autonomy and won the endorsement of Gaston Flosse and his Tahoera’a Huira’atira. The ruling Tapura Huira’atira of Edouard Fritch backs mainstream conservative Francois Fillion. Centrist Emmanuel Macron tied or just ahead of LePen in the polls, just created a new party, En Marche, which has little organizational support in French Polynesia.