French Polynesia's Tahoeraa may lose another assembly member

8:48 am on 6 September 2017
Tahoeraa Huiraatira headquarters

Tahoeraa Huiraatira headquarters Photo: RNZI/Walter Zweifel

There is again speculation in French Polynesia that the formerly dominant Tahoeraa Huiraatira Party is about to lose another assembly member.

According to La Depeche de Tahiti, Gilda Vaiho-Faatoa is about to become an independent member, joining the assembly president Marcel Tuihani.

In June, he quit jointly with his father, who had been a decades-long party treasurer, over policies determined by the party president Gaston Flosse.

Ms Vaiho-Faatoa has reportedly sided with Tuihani which the paper says has irked Flosse.

Flosse is barred from holding office because of a 2014 conviction and suspended jail sentence for corruption.

Since he lost office, the party had shed about half of its members who have since formed the ruling anti-independence coalition led by Flosse's former deputy Edouard Fritch.