New Caledonia rejects independence in final vote amid boycott
The indigenous Kanak population, who largely favor independence, had called for non-participation in the referendum because they are in a 12-month mourning period following a September surge in coronavirus infections.Provisional results published by French authorities showed support for a “no” to independence was at 96.5%, while turnout stood at 43.9%. Sunday’s vote, the third and final ballot on the issue, follows two previous polls in 2018 and “The worst of scenarios? A “no” vote which bans independence, but whose legitimacy is rejected by the Kanaks via a massive abstention rate motivated by Paris’s refusal to postpone the vote,” François Heisbourg, an analyst for the IISS think-tank, said on Twitter.One of five island territories spanning the Indo-Pacific held by France, New Caledonia is the centerpiece of Macron’s plan to increase its influence in the Pacific.Sunday’s vote is the third prescribed by a deal hammered out a decade after talks on the island’s future began in 1988, and which called for a series of independence referendums.Fighting erupted in the 1980s in the nickel-rich territory, 1,200 kilometers (750 miles) east of Australia and 20,000 kilometers (12,000 miles) from France, between supporters of independence and those who wanted to stay French.
