Transcript
The Tahoeraa Huiraatira party is warning of riots in Tahiti of the kind seen in 1995 if the rival Tapura Huiraatira party stays in power for another term. The Tahoeraa leader Gaston Flosse told a news conference that there has to be a drastic change which the Tapura won't deliver.
"There are 55,000 people out of work who are starving. Do you think they will keep starving for another 10 years?"
The Tahoeraa won the last election in 2013 and is desperate to return to power. To do so, it only needs to come first in this weekend's run-off round. Trailing by 14 percent after the first round, the Tahoeraa says in pockets where the Tapura fared badly, millions of dollars in subsidies are now being released. Debating in the studios of Radio 1, a Tapura candidate Virginie Bruant dismissed suggestions of impropriety.
"The process to request a subsidy is long. And it has to go through the assembly."
The Tahoeraa also alleges the mayor of Huahine Marcelin Lisan tried to influence voters by giving away fuel from the petrol station he owns, and by donating chicken. The mayor is also accused of threating council staff with dismissal. This has prompted a citizen, Yves Conroy, to file a complaint in Paris asking for the Huahine election to be annulled.A senior Tahoeraa candidate Sandra Levy-Agami says information about improper action has been piling up.
"I have told the Tapura to watch out because in the age of the internet, young people have smartphones, they film you and put it on the internet, which ultimately adds up to quite a bit."
In the lead-up to the election, Oscar Temaru's pro-independence party as well as minor new parties made a point of having no candidates in their line-up with criminal convictions for abusing public funds. The Tapura has nine convicted candidates, including the current president Edouard Fritch who in the past term was forced to repay the public purse more than $US80,000 of taxpayers' money that had been diverted as part of a scam. In a debate, Sandra Levy-Agami restated time and again that her party's slate is clean. Flosse is not allowed to stand because his corruption convictions ban him from holding office until 2019. Geffry Salmon, who is the Tahoeraa top candidate, admits that in the past under Gaston Flosse it had been Tahoeraa practice to spend public money on voters freely which the incumbent presdient Edouard Fritch also did and still does.
"Obviously it was his school and this is how he grew up in politics. Unfortunately going beyond certain limits he has surpassed his master."
With poverty getting entrenched as tens of thousands are out of work, the Tahoeraa promises relief for many, ranging from free phone landlines to almost free public transport. It also promises training subsidies and vows to keep the retirement age at 60 while the Tapura says raising it to 62 is its priority after the election.The nature of politics has been a turn-off for many and at 61 percent the turnout in the first round was the lowest in more than half a century.The Greens failed to make it to the second round and are now asking their supporters to cast a blank ballot. Others have also joined the call while Oscar Temaru is pinning his hopes on more voters coming out for the run-off. 80,000 registered voters stayed away in the first round, which is larger than the number of votes any party managed to secure at the polls.
