Vanuatu's politics: custom land, chiefs and a parliament that keeps changing sides

How parliament makes and unmakes governments

Parliament is a single chamber, and the constitution requires an electoral system with an element of proportional representation so that different groups and opinions are fairly represented. Wikipedia's country article gives 52 members: 44 elected by single non-transferable vote in multi-member constituencies and eight in single-member seats by plurality. Any citizen aged 25 or over may stand. A parliament runs for four years unless it is dissolved first.

The executive is drawn from parliament. Members elect the prime minister from among themselves by secret ballot, and the prime minister appoints the other ministers, who must also be members. The Council of Ministers, prime minister included, may not exceed a third of the membership of parliament in the constitution's revised text of 2013. Ministers are collectively responsible to parliament.

The mechanism that has shaped the country's politics is the motion of no confidence. It needs a week's notice and the signatures of one sixth of the members, and if an absolute majority supports it the prime minister and every minister leave office at once, staying on only until a successor is elected. Parliament can also dissolve itself by an absolute majority at a special sitting attended by three-quarters of its members, or the president can dissolve it on the advice of the Council of Ministers. Elections must follow within 30 to 60 days, and no second dissolution is allowed within twelve months of an election held after a dissolution.

Changing the constitution takes two-thirds of all members at a special sitting where three-quarters are present. Amendments touching the status of Bislama, English and French, the electoral system or the parliamentary system also need a national referendum.

What the president is for

The president is head of state and, in the words of the constitution, symbolises the unity of the nation. An electoral college of the members of parliament and the presidents of the provincial councils elects the president by secret ballot for five years; Wikipedia's country article gives the required majority as two-thirds. The college may remove a president for gross misconduct or incapacity.

The office's powers are mostly formal, with two exceptions that make it a check on parliament. A president who thinks a bill is inconsistent with the constitution must refer it to the Supreme Court before signing, and the bill cannot be promulgated if the court agrees. The president can also refer any government regulation to the court. The courts have in turn checked the presidency: in 2004 a newly elected president was found to be serving a suspended sentence that should have barred his candidacy, and the Supreme Court ordered his removal that May.

Why governments fell so often

For the first decade the English-speaking Vanua'aku Pati governed alone. After it split in 1991 the main parties, it and the French-speaking Union of Moderate Parties, fragmented into many small ones, and Wikipedia's article on the country's politics describes alliances driven by electoral convenience and personality more than by ideology. Coalitions of several small parties formed and broke as members crossed the floor, and prime ministers were frequently removed by no-confidence motions. RNZ counted three changes of government in 2023 alone.

The pull on members is local. The same article describes a political culture built on clientelism, with each member holding allocations of money to spend on constituents. In a 2024 Political Attitudes Survey cited by the ni-Vanuatu researcher Anna Naupa, 35% of voters said members of parliament should focus on community projects, 16% that they should promote national development and only 8% that governing the country was an important part of their role. A former rural member told her that voters pressed him to stay on the government side, even at the price of changing party, because that was where he could deliver for them.

In 2015 a bribery investigation ended in the conviction of several members of the governing coalition, a former prime minister among them.

The constitution anticipated the problem. Its Leadership Code binds the president, ministers, members of parliament and senior officials not to place themselves in a conflict of interest, demean their office or use it for personal gain, and leaves parliament to give the code effect by law. An Ombudsman appointed for five years, after consultation that reaches from the party leaders to the president of the Malvatumauri, may investigate any public servant or ministry on a complaint or on the office's own initiative, and reports to parliament every year. Wikipedia's article on the country's politics records that in 2018 Vanuatu enacted legislation to improve public access to government information.

What the first referendum changed

The constitution's 2013 text already carried Articles 17A and 17B, written in terms that referred back to the 2004 election. The amendments put to voters in May 2024, the first national referendum held in Vanuatu, concerned the same two articles: Article 17A, under which a member who resigns from or stops supporting the party that endorsed them loses the seat, and Article 17B, which requires every member to belong to a political party and bars one-person parties. Parliament had already passed both, and the vote decided whether they would take effect.

Efate, Port Vila and Tanna supported the changes, according to RNZ, while Santo and Epi voted against and Pentecost and Malakula were divided. Diaspora votes cast in Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and New Caledonia leaned towards yes. The amendments do not stop a whole party changing sides during a parliament; they regulate individual members. Parliament was dissolved on 18 November 2024 and a snap election was held on 16 January 2025 for the country's fourteenth legislature.

How chiefs and custom courts fit in

Beside the elected institutions the constitution sets up the Malvatumauri Council of Chiefs, made up of custom chiefs elected by their peers in district councils of chiefs. It may discuss any matter of land, custom and tradition and recommend measures to preserve ni-Vanuatu culture and languages, and parliament must consult it on any bill that touches land, tradition or custom.

Land is the core of that settlement. Article 73 states that all land in the republic belongs to the indigenous custom owners and their descendants, Article 74 makes the rules of custom the basis of ownership and use, and only indigenous citizens holding land under a recognised system of tenure may own it in perpetuity. A transaction between an indigenous citizen and anyone else needs the government's consent. Under Article 78 as amended, decisions on custom land reached by customary institutions and recorded in writing are binding and cannot be appealed to any court. Foreigners lease land, and Britannica records leases of 75 years.

The courts follow the same double pattern. The Supreme Court has a chief justice and up to three other judges, two or more of whom can sit as a Court of Appeal, and magistrates' courts handle most routine cases. The law draws on both English common law and French civil law, an inheritance of the condominium. Parliament must provide village or island courts with jurisdiction over customary matters and a role for chiefs, and island courts may be set up to rule on land disputes.

Below the national institutions, chiefs remain the leading figures in most villages, and Wikipedia reports that politicians are expected to defer to them. In the north of the country chiefs rise through graded societies, the system known as nimangki. The same article notes that there were no women in the parliament of 2012 to 2016 and, in general, no female chiefs, though some local cultures accord women high rank.

How the provinces share power

Vanuatu has been divided into six provinces since 1994, each with an elected provincial council on which, under Article 83 of the constitution, representatives of the custom chiefs also sit. The provinces are divided in turn into municipalities, usually one island each, governed by a council and a mayor. The names are acronyms of the islands each province holds.

Each province also keeps a public holiday of its own, from Shefa Day in June to Malampa Day in October, on the government's list of holidays.

Language cuts across all these levels. Bislama, English and French are all official, and Article 64 gives every citizen the right to be served by the administration in the official language that citizen uses. A citizen refused that service may complain to the Ombudsman, who reports to parliament each year on how far the administration respects its three languages.

Who Vanuatu stands with abroad

Vanuatu became independent within the Commonwealth and is a member of the United Nations, the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie and the Pacific Islands Forum. It joined the World Trade Organization on 24 August 2012. It keeps no army: Britannica notes that defence has rested since 1980 on a pact with Papua New Guinea, and the police include a paramilitary wing, the Vanuatu Mobile Force. Australia, which opened a consulate in 1978 and a high commission in Port Vila in 1980, describes itself as Vanuatu's largest bilateral economic, development, security and humanitarian partner.

The first government under Walter Lini took a non-aligned line and opposed French nuclear testing in French Polynesia and French rule in New Caledonia. Later governments have raised human rights in West Papua at the United Nations: in March 2017 Vanuatu delivered a joint statement to the Human Rights Council on behalf of several Pacific states, and Indonesia rejected its allegations. Recognition of Taiwan was agreed secretly in 2004, contributed to the fall of that government, and was reversed in favour of the People's Republic of China. China funded the redevelopment of the wharf at Luganville and in July 2024 handed over three government buildings, including a presidential palace.

The claim to Matthew and Hunter islands, made in 1982 and disputed by France, has never been resolved.

Aid has followed the old colonial ties. Since 1980 Australia, the United Kingdom, France and New Zealand have supplied most of Vanuatu's development aid, though direct British aid stopped in 2005. In that year the United States Millennium Challenge Account chose Vanuatu as one of its first fifteen countries and gave US$65 million to build and upgrade public infrastructure. Newspaper reports in Australia in 2018 said that more than half of Vanuatu's debt of $440 million was owed to China.

How Vanuatu took climate change to the World Court

Vanuatu led a core group of states that asked the United Nations General Assembly to seek an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice on states' obligations in respect of climate change. The General Assembly made the request in March 2023, and the court delivered its opinion on 23 July 2025, finding unanimously that states have obligations under international law to act and that breaches carry legal consequences. On 20 May 2026 the General Assembly adopted a follow-up resolution drafted by Vanuatu and several other states, by 141 votes to 8 with 28 abstentions. Advisory opinions are not binding.