Vanuatu had 19 Prime Ministers in last 24 years

Vanuatu amassed 19 Prime Ministers in the last 24 years, almost one prime minister for every year.

For the first 11 years after independence in 1980, Vanuatu had a stable majority ruling government of the Vanua’aku Pati led by the Father of Independence, Fr. Walter Lini, who was Prime Minister for the whole of that time.

After the breakdown of his majority government in 1991 to now, the country has been ruled by coalition governments that have seen 24 long years of instability. The ultimate resultant of which was the recent jailing of 14 members of Parliament, five of them government ministers including the deputy prime minister.

Figures divulged by the Clerk of Parliament, Louis Kalnpel, showed that over those 24 years from 1991 to November, 2015 when this last Parliament was dissolved by President Baldwin Lonsdale last week, there have been 9 legislatures, 24 prime ministers and 468 lawmakers or members of Parliament.

Interestingly, the number of prime ministers showed that the country had almost one prime minister for every year during that period. In the early years of the coalition experiences the country had almost a new prime minister every three months.

All told, this reflected the stark reality of the serious problems with the country’s governance system, which must be fixed, if Vanuatu is to progress and provide better tangible benefits from independence to her people.