Transcript
WZ: Again the question of who should be allowed to vote has been raised. Under the Noumea Accord, voting rights are restricted to long-term residents, but for years there have been disputes over the make-up of the roll. At the news conference, the FLNKS has restated its demand that all Kanak people, who have customary status and common law status, be automatically inscribed on the general roll. To be on the general roll is a prerequisite to be allowed onto the referendum roll.
DG: What are the disputes?
WZ: There are claims that some settlers are on the roll although they fail the residency requirements. This is a claim that won't go away and the size of the problem is not clear. Special commissions have been vetting the rolls and in the main they have been found to be correct. But only on Sunday, the Labour Party, which is not part of the FLNKS, said hundreds if not thousands of people are enrolled in what its leader described as legalised fraud. The inference is that the French state, through the communes, is dishonest in the registration process and helping the loyalists skew the roll.
DG: Are there any indications of how this vote could go?
WZ: There has been one major opinion poll in recent months and it showed that the anti-independence camp will win. Some loyalists are so confident that they already say the outcome is a foregone conclusion. The FLNKS however still believes it's in with a chance to win. It is pinning its hopes on revised rolls and being able to present a credible model for an independent country. It has also said it wants to extend the registration period from the end of December to September next year to ensure a maximum number of voters take part in the plebiscite. And it says it will ask for people from the mainly Kanak islands to be allowed to vote in Noumea which is the territory's population and employment hub. It suggests that the communes on Mare, Lifou, Ouvea, Isle of Pines and Belep be allowed to set up polling stations in the city.
DG: When could there be a decision on these various demands?
WZ: A meeting of the signatories to the Noumea Accord in Paris in October is expected to be the occasion when these issues will be decided. But the FLNKS wants to continue consultations on its model and once feedback has been received from the movement's components, it plans to finalise its document at the Congress at the end of the year. At the news conference, the FLNKS listed its efforts to get international traction for its plans. It says it wants to study Timor-Leste which took three years after its gaining independence to get its own constitution. FLNKS delegates raised the issue of defence, saying Solomon Islands is an example worth looking at because it has no army but relies on regional security arrangements. The Fiji constitution has been evoked as a recent example of a document drawn up for a multi-cultural society.
