4 Jun 2012

Tahoeraa pleased with French Polynesia election outcome

3:25 pm on 4 June 2012

The leader of French Polynesia's opposition Tahoeraa Huiraatira Party, Gaston Flosse, has thanked the territory's voters for making it the strongest force in the weekend first round of the French National Assembly election.

The Tahoeraa's three candidates made it through to the run-off round in two weeks as did the three candidates of the pro-independence Union For Democracy.

Mr Flosse has noted that his party's candidates won 25,000 votes which is 5,000 more than the rival camp.

The Tahoeraa candidates, Edouard Fritch and Jonas Tahuaitu, scored the best results in two electorates while in the third electorate, Tauhiti Nena won most votes.

None of the other 39 candidates obtained more than 12.5 percent of the votes needed to make it for the run-off round.

The Tahoeraa hopes to secure the anti-independence vote in the second round while the Union For Democracy hopes for a bigger turn-out as it believes it will favour its three candidates.

In 2007, the Tahoeraa won the French Assembly seats, but its two members fell out with the leadership and quit the party.