Tahiti majority forms new RMA group

2:43 pm on 11 December 2015

French Polynesia's president, Edouard Fritch, has presented his newly formed assembly majority under a new label in an apparent merger of two of the main parties.

The new group is to be known as RMA which is made up of his Tapura Huiraatira group and the Atia Porinetia Party as well as Joelle Frebault of the pro-independence Union For Democracy who joined Mr Fritch's camp yesterday.

French Polynesia president Edouard Fritch in Paris

French Polynesia president Edouard Fritch in Paris Photo: supplied

Her defection gives the RMA group 29 seats in the 57-member assembly.

The RMA has not been established as a formal party but it is poised to be able to pass the budget.

The opposition is now made up of the Union For Democracy and the Tahoeraa Huiraatira whose president, Gaston Flosse, is barred from office because of a corruption conviction.

The Tahoeraa had won 38 seats in the election two years ago but after months of rancour has shrunk to less than half its size.