Parliamentary Elections, 16 January 2025

On 16 January 2025, Vanuatu held an early general election. The election was postponed by two days due to a 7.3 magnitude earthquake that hit near the capital on 17 December 2024. The earthquake killed 14 people and injured 265 others (RNZ 2025). 

Vanuatu has a 52-member unicameral parliament elected via singular non-transferable vote in multiple-member constituencies; and first-past-the-post in single member constituencies. There are 18 national constituencies, six of which are single-member and 12 being multiple-member (from two to seven members). All 52 seats were up for election. The Vanuatuan Electoral Commission is composed of three members, a chairman and two others, who are all appointed by president on a five-year term (). 

Following the damage of the earthquake, as many polling stations needed to be relocated, the Vanuatu Electoral Commission pushed back the date of the election from 14 to 16 January, the latest possible date within the two-month window allowed by the constitution (Hawkins, 2025a).   

25 political parties were registered for the election but only 23 contested it and only 12 secured seats; just seven of 216 candidates standing were women (Hawkins 2025c). Opposition MPs tried unsuccessfully to cancel the snap election twice (McKay 2025). The opposition sought to stay the dissolution of parliament, but failed to overturn legal precedent upholding the president’s absolute authority over the dissolution of parliament if prompted by the council of ministers (Hawkins 2024).  

Election day went without reports of any major incidents of violence or other significant events. However, there were several reports of people showing up to the incorrect polling station, bringing the wrong form of ID, or discovering they were not registered to vote (Roberts 2025b). The Vanuatuan government organized a bus for voters residing in New Caledonia to transport them to the out-of-country polling station there (Hawkins 2025b). Election workers were trained on how to help voters with the new ballot (see below, Innovations) while not influencing their vote (Roberts 2025a). 

Prisoners across all islands were also able to vote in the election. In Port Vila, two polling stations were allocated specifically for inmates and on-duty officers located near the prisons (Malapa 2025). 

Four different parties filed an election petition. Three of those were thrown out for failing to meet with filing deadline and a fourth was dismissed due to lack of evidence and failing to pay court fee on time (Roberts 2025c). 

Turnout was 69.09 per cent, much higher than the 44.16 per cent turnout recorded in 2022 (International IDEA n.d.). Two parties took the most seats in parliament with the Leaders Party winning nine seats and the Vanua'aku Pati seven, with the rest split amongst other political parties and one independent. One female candidate was elected while another lost her seat, meaning the proportion of women MPs remains at one out of 52 (Hawkins 2025c).

Innovations

The Electoral Act No. 16 of 2023, the law brought numerous changes to the Vanuatuan electoral process. These included changing the style of the election ballot to a single ballot paper with all candidates for each individual constituency (Vanuatu Electoral Office n.d.); replacing electoral rolls with a voter registry; introducing basic campaign finance disclosure regulations; and expanding out-of-country voting to New Caledonia (Vanuatu Electoral Office n.d.). Moreover, the law introduced a gender quota for the electoral commission and reserved seats for women in municipal council constituencies (Vanuatu Electoral Office n.d.).

Five of the political parties that gained representation won only one seat and under recent constitutional amendments, had three months to affiliate themselves with a larger party (Hawkins 2025c).