28 Aug 2008

French Polynesian government meets amid demand for reshuffle

2:12 pm on 28 August 2008

The French Polynesian government is meeting today amid a demand by the Aia Api party that the ruling coalition be re-shuffled.

The Aia Api party leader, Emile Vernaudon, says the two Aia Api members put into government no longer reflect the party's values.

One of them is Fernand Roomataaroa who became the agriculture minister in May in the second cabinet re-shuffle by Mr Tong Sang who formed his government a month earlier.

A newspaper report in Tahiti says Mr Vernaudon may want that his wife be given a ministerial portfolio.

Meanwhile, a former senior Aia Api member, Hiro Tefaarere, who launched his own party this month, has reportedly been offered to run the Setil company which is in charge of the international airport in Faa'a.

Mr Tefaarere had been jailed over his role in the 1995 riots which saw the airport badly damaged.