The Owen Hall Polling Station in Port Vila, Vanuatu. Photo: Koroi Hawkins/RNZ Pacific
Over 180,000 registered voters are expected to cast their votes today with polls now open in Vanuatu.
It is remarkable the snap-election is even able to happen with Friday marking one month since the 7.3 magnitude earthquake struck the capital Port Vila.
According to the government, 14 people died as a result of the quake, over 210 were injured and thousands displaced.
Despite all of this principal electoral officer Guilain Malessas said they worked around the clock to deliver the election within the two-month timeframe stipulated by the constitution.
The voter turnout at the last election was less than 50 percent but Malessas is optimistic participation today will be high.
He urged voters to go and exercise their democratic right.
"This country - we own it, it's ours. If we just sit and complain that, this, that and the other thing aren't good but then don't contribute to making decisions then we will never change," Guilain Malessas said.
But not everybody is convinced that proceeding with the election was the right decision.
The president of the Port Vila Council of Women Jane Iatika said many families are still grieving, traumatised and struggling to put food on the table.
"If they were thinking about the people they would have [postponed] the election and dealt with the disaster first," she said.
"Like right now if a mother goes and lines up to vote in the election - when they come back home what are they going to eat?"
This is the second consecutive time Vanuatu's parliament has been dissolved in the face of political instability.
And the country has had four prime ministerial changes in as many years.
The chairman of the Seaside Tongoa community Paul Fred Tariliu said people are starting to lose faith in leadership, not just in parliament but at the community level as well.
He said they have been urging their candidates to be humble and concede defeat if they find themselves short of the numbers needed to rule.
"Instead of just going [into parliament] for a short time finding out they don't have the numbers and dissolving parliament," Paul Fred Tariliu said.
"We are wasting money.
"When we continue with this kind of attitude people lose their trust in us [community] leaders and our national leaders."
The official results of the last election in 2022 show a low voter turnout of just over 44 percent with the lowest participation in the country, just 34 percent, registered here in the capital Port Vila.
The Owen Hall Polling Station in Port Vila, Vanuatu. Photo: Koroi Hawkins/RNZ Pacific
Conducting the election itself is a complicated logistical exercise with 352 polling stations spread out over the 12,000-square kilometre archipelago manned by 1700 polling officials and an additional one in Noumea for citizens residing in New Caledonia.
Proxy voting is also being facilitated for workers overseas.
Deputy Police Commissioner Operations, Kalo Willie Ben, said over 360 police officers have been deployed to provide security for the election process.
He said there are no active security threats for the election, but he said they are prepared to deploy more resources to any part of the country should the need arise.
"My advice [to the public] is that we conduct ourselves peacefully and raise any issues through the election dispute process," Kalo Willie Ben said.
The head of the government Recovery Unit, Peter Korisa, said according to their initial estimates it will cost just over $US230 million to fully rebuild the capital after the earthquake.
Korisa said they are getting backlash for the indefinite closure of the CBD but continue to work diligently to ensure that, whatever government comes to power this month, it is presented with a clear recovery plan.
"We still have a bit of funding but there is a greater challenge because we need to have a government in place so that we can trigger the bigger funding," Peter Korisa said.
Polling stations close at 4:30pm local time.
Principal electoral officer Guilain Malessas said an unofficial count will be conducted at all polling station venues before ballot boxes are transported back to the capital Port Vila for the official tally.
According to parliamentary standing orders the first sitting of the new parliament must be called within 21 days of the official election results being declared.
A spokesperson for the caretaker government has confirmed to RNZ Pacific that constitutional amendments aimed at curbing political instability will apply after the snap election.
The most immediate impact of these amendments will be that all independent MPs, and MPs who are the only member of their party or custom movement, must affiliate themselves with a larger political party for the full term of parliament.
They also lock MPs into political parties with any defection or removal from a party resulting in the MP concerned losing their seat in parliament.
However, the amendments do not prohibit entire parties from crossing the floor to either side so long as they do it as a united group.
It remains to be seen how effective the amendments will be in curbing instability.
The only real certainty provided by the constitution after this snap election is that the option to dissolve parliament will not be available for the next 12 months.
