Referendum in New Caledonia: very low turnout at midday

Published on : 12/12/2021 – 07:10

It is a ballot which for the moment does not attract crowds. Turnout in the third and last self-determination referendum was 27.75% at 12 p.m. Sunday (2 a.m. in Paris) according to the High Commission, a very sharp drop compared to the previous two, this election being marked by the call for the “non-participation” of independence parties, favoring the No to independence camp.

The 307 polling stations opened Sunday at 7 a.m. (9 p.m. in Paris) for a third self-determination referendum, after those of October 4, 2020 and November 4, 2018, which saw the No to independence prevail in 56.7%, and 53.3%.

In the first consultation, the midday turnout was 41.81%, and it was 49.40% in 2020.

“The polling stations all opened their doors this morning and the electoral operations are being held there without any incident having been reported at this stage,” assured the High Commission in a statement. However, he indicated “an attempted roadblock on an axis of the Ile des Pins”, which required the intervention of the gendarmes, without giving more details.

At the Candide-Koch polling station, in the mixed neighborhood of the valley of the settlers, at 9 a.m. there was a queue of several meters in front of the polling station, in oppressive heat.

For Cathy, bookseller in Nouméa, “this referendum does not make too much sense because half of the population has decided not to vote. I came out of civility, what interests me is the society we are going to. build after, “she told AFP.

“Call for calm”

The separatists have indeed announced that they will not go to the polls, citing the impossibility of organizing “a fair campaign” while the archipelago has been affected since September by a Covid-19 epidemic.

The President of the Customary Senate, Yvon Kona, launched a “call for calm” on Thursday while asking “Kanak citizens and Caledonian progressives to observe a national day of + Kanak mourning” on December 12, 2021 by not going to the offices of vote “.

The authorities have deployed an important security device of 2,000 gendarmes, police and soldiers on the island, which even before the referendum had been deployed ostensibly in Noumea and its surroundings.

This presence of the police, “it is a provocation for the young people”, declared in the morning to AFP a resident of Saint-Louis, Kanak tribe at the gates of Nouméa, scene of violent incidents during the first referendum.

In Montravel, a popular Kanak city north of Nouméa, the polling station was almost deserted around 11 a.m. and the police forces checked the papers at the entrance. The police also diverted a road in the city which skirted the polling station and helicopters flew over Montravel, noted an AFP journalist.

“For us, it’s a normal day. We don’t understand this deployment of police and military forces when nothing is happening. For us it’s provocation. It’s nonsense, it looks like there is war “, tell AFP young people from the city, sitting away from the polling station under a blazing flower, and who say they are more concerned by the pre-cyclone warning declared Sunday morning only by ballot.

“It looks like Montravel at the time of the events” of the 1980s, declares Irène, head of the association, who has just put her ballot in the ballot box.

The day after

This referendum is part of a process of decolonization that began in 1988 after several years of violence between the Kanaks, the first people, and the Caldoches, of European origin. These clashes culminated in the taking of hostages and the assault on Ouvéa cave in May 1988 (25 dead).

Whatever the result of the referendum, “the day after there will be life together” with France, in particular “given the geopolitical reality of the region,” President Emmanuel Macron assured Thursday.

In June in Paris, the Caledonian actors had decided with the State that after December 12 would open “a period of stability and convergence” before a “project referendum” by June 2023, which, in the event of yes Sunday, would relate to the constitution of a new State and, if not, to a new statute in the Republic.

The dialogue will not be so easy, however, the FLNKS and the nationalists have already warned Thursday in a statement that they rejected any meeting with the Minister of Overseas Sébastien Lecornu, who arrived in Noumea on Friday, before the French presidential election, in April 2022.

New Caledonia has been included since 1986 on the UN list of non-self-governing territories to be decolonized.

With AFP