NEW CALEDONIA HOLDS FIRST PROVINCIAL ELECTIONS SINCE 2019

Polling stations in the French overseas territory of New Caledonia closed on Sunday following the archipelago's first provincial elections since 2019. The vote, initially scheduled for 2024, had been delayed as discussions over the territory's political future stalled. Approximately 192,000 voters elected 76 councillors across three provincial assemblies: 40 for the South Province, 22 for the North Province and 14 for the Loyalty Islands. The recorded turnout reached 54.42 per cent.

The election will establish the balance of power in New Caledonia ahead of fresh negotiations with France regarding the territory's constitutional status, with independence remaining the principal political question. Fifty-four of the newly elected councillors will sit in the territory's congress, the main governing body authorised to enact local legislation. The congress will then elect up to 11 members to the collegial government executive branch. A law passed in May added approximately 10,575 previously excluded "native-born" residents to the electoral roll, including over 4,000 people with customary civil status denoting indigenous Kanak identity, expanding the eligible electorate after the roll had been frozen under a 1998 agreement.

The election occurs more than two years after 2024 violence that resulted in 14 deaths and caused damage valued at over two billion euros. The pro-independence movement rejected the Bougival Accord, a proposed deal with France that would have established a Caledonian state and enshrined Caledonian nationality within the French constitution whilst eliminating future independence referendums. Three independence referendums held in 2018, 2020 and 2021 returned majorities favouring continued French sovereignty, though pro-independence groups boycotted the third vote during the Covid pandemic. France deployed approximately 2,400 law enforcement officers to the territory ahead of polling.