Free Republic

French anti-corruption leader views Tahiti as classic case of corruption (Tahitipresse) - As some 110,000 Windward Islands potential voters prepare for Sunday’s by-election, a visiting French anti-corruption leader described Tahiti as a “good example” of political corruption. Tahiti is a good example because even though it is smaller than France, when examined under a magnifying glass, “one encounters all that one finds elsewhere—cronyism, rigged markets, fictitious employment, financial channels and even pressures that one can exert on civil servants or judges,” Eric Halphen said Friday. Halphen, a former powerful and controversial examining judge in France who has turned to politics,...

PAPEETE - After years of battling to gain power in French Polynesia, newly elected Oscar Temaru could not sleep the first night he set foot in the presidential residence. It wasn't because he was overexcited. Temaru was horrified at the grandiose interior of golden curtains and inlaid furniture, crystal chandeliers and yellow walls. "It looked like the city hall in Paris." Temaru had never seen inside the three-year-old $85 million complex before he narrowly won the May election and formed a coalition with a majority of one seat. Now Temaru and his supporters are illegally occupying the presidential buildings and...

The positions over the situation in French Polynesia are becoming increasingly entrenched. Although a strong argument can be made that this is a political crisis rather than a constitutional or legal crisis, if two men claim to be the president of French Polynesia and if the main opposition party refuses to concede that it has lost power then a major constitutional crisis is in the making. Oscar Temaru, the leader of the Union for Democracy (UPLD), appears to have lost most of the legal battles he has waged. He wanted new elections to be held immediately after he lost two...