Four-time Vanuatu prime minister Sato Kilman has been elected to the top job for a record fifth time on Monday in Port Vila, ousting Alatoi Ishmael Kalsakau’s nine-month reign as the leader of government.<\/p>\n
Kilman received a total of 27 votes, while Kalsakau got 23 votes.<\/p>\n
Kilman, 65, was the deputy PM in Kalsakau’s government before being removed in May. At the time Kalsakau had stated that Kilman’s dismissal was for “stability of the coalition government”.<\/p>\n
“Mr speaker first and foremost I want to say a big thank you to the members of parliament and the political parties that supported the change in government. Thank you,” he said.<\/p>\n
“But thank you even more for standing your ground and for ensuring that democracy prevails in Vanuatu.”<\/p>\n
Earlier on Monday, Vanuatu’s highest court – the Court of Appeal – dismissed an appeal against the removal Kalsakau.<\/p>\n
Last month the opposition grouping, led by former PM Bob Loughman, brought a motion of no-confidence in Kalsakau.<\/p>\n
They garnered 26 of the 49 votes cast but the parliamentary speaker ruled they had not reached what he considered the minimum 27 required for a successful motion in the 52 member House.<\/p>\n
Loughman’s group appealed to the courts, which last week ruled in their favour, but the speaker appealed that decision.<\/p>\n
That appeal was dismissed today bringing an end to Kalsakau’s tenure and triggering the election of the new prime minister.<\/p>\n
Sato Kilman was sworn in as prime minister immediately after the vote on Monday evening.<\/p>\n
He is expected to announce the composition of the cabinet of his new coalition government later this week.<\/p>\n
Source: RNZ<\/p>\n
Photo:\u00a0Kelvin Anthony<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Four-time Vanuatu prime minister Sato Kilman has been elected to the top job for a record fifth time on Monday in Port Vila, ousting Alatoi Ishmael Kalsakau’s nine-month reign as the leader of government. Kilman received a total of 27 votes, while Kalsakau got 23 votes. Kilman, 65, was the deputy PM in Kalsakau’s government […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":7644,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[177],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7643"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7643\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7645,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7643\/revisions\/7645"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7644"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}