French Polynesia's Tahoeraa Huiraatira deputy Edouard Fritch has been elected as President of the Assembly.
He won 38 of the 57 votes, with the rival candidate of the pro-independence Union For Democracy, Chantal Galenon, getting 10 votes.
The election came during the first session of the new assembly after last week's Tahoeraa Huiraatira Party triumph in the territorial election.
The party leader, Gaston Flosse, is expected to be elected as President tomorrow and name his government later in the day.
His main opponent, the outgoing President Oscar Temaru, is in New York.
A few hours before the expected election of Mr Flosse, Mr Temaru hopes the UN will pass a resolution that would reinscribe the territory on the UN decolonisation list, a move Gaston Flosse is strongly opposed to.
