After more than five months of disagreements and tensions between the pro-independence parties, Louis Mapou was elected president of the 17th government of New Caledonia this Thursday, July 8. He thus becomes the first pro-Kanaky leader to hold this post under the Noumea Accord, signed on May,5 1998.
Louis Mapou was elected with six votes out of eleven, three from his group, the UNI (the National Union for Independence) and three from the UC (Caledonian Union).
The pro-France candidate, former president of the government Thierry Santa, obtained 4 votes. And one abstention was registered
Before Mapou, Jean-Marie Tjibaou, signatory of Matignon with Jacques Lafleur in June 1988, putting an end to the civil war in this french overseas territory, had served as vice-president of the Council of government from June 1982 to September 1984.
