History
The FLNKS is composed of the Caledonian Union (UC) (a center-left formerly multi-ethnic party dating back to the early postwar period) on one hand and the National Union for Independence (UNI) on the other hand. The UNI includes Melanesian Progressive Union (a political movement based on the island's west coast and mainly around the village of Poya, where its founder, the late Edmond Nekiriai hails from), the Oceanian Democratic Rally (a Polynesian (Wallisian-and-Futunian) based party) and the Party of Kanak Liberation (PALIKA), a more radical party founded by left-leaning students that came back from France after the May 1968 riots. Both the UC and UNI are of approximately equal size, and with varying rhetoric. However, all support the independence of New Caledonia
The party has been divided since the early 1990s between the Caledonian Union and UNI, and, as a result, the two factions often run candidates and lists against each other and neither can agree on a leader of the FLNKS. The coalition only has a spokesperson, Victor Tutugoro.
An attempt to re-unite the party was made on the occasion of the 2007 legislative elections in France, in which both New Caledonian constituencies were up for election. In New Caledonia's 1st constituency, Charles Washetine, a member of UNI-Palika ran with a Caledonian Union running mate. In New Caledonia's 2nd constituency, the leader of the Caledonian Union, Charles Pidjot, ran with a UNI-Palika running mate. However, both were defeated by the candidates of The Rally-UMP.
The FLNKS ran a common list in the South Province in the 2009 election which obtained 8.82% and 4 seats in the province. In the province during the 2004 elections, the pro-independence faction was divided and did not win any seats.
Read more about this topic: Kanak And Socialist National Liberation Front
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)
“Literary works cannot be taken over like factories, or literary forms of expression like industrial methods. Realist writing, of which history offers many widely varying examples, is likewise conditioned by the question of how, when and for what class it is made use of.”
—Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956)
“The thing that struck me forcefully was the feeling of great age about the place. Standing on that old parade ground, which is now a cricket field, I could feel the dead generations crowding me. Here was the oldest settlement of freedmen in the Western world, no doubt. Men who had thrown off the bands of slavery by their own courage and ingenuity. The courage and daring of the Maroons strike like a purple beam across the history of Jamaica.”
—Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)