{"id":12063,"date":"2025-01-16T11:37:46","date_gmt":"2025-01-16T11:37:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/2025\/01\/16\/voting-begins-in-quake-ravaged-pacific-nation-of-vanuatu\/"},"modified":"2025-01-16T11:37:46","modified_gmt":"2025-01-16T11:37:46","slug":"voting-begins-in-quake-ravaged-pacific-nation-of-vanuatu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/2025\/01\/16\/voting-begins-in-quake-ravaged-pacific-nation-of-vanuatu\/","title":{"rendered":"Voting begins in quake-ravaged Pacific nation of Vanuatu"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sydney (Reuters) \u2014<\/strong> Voting began on Thursday to elect a new government in Vanuatu, a month after a 7.3-magnitude earthquake struck the Pacific island nation\u2019s capital Port Vila, killing at least 16 people, triggering landslides and damaging several major buildings. <\/p>\n

A snap election had to be called after Vanuatu President Nikenike Vurobaravu in November dissolved the parliament following a no-confidence motion against him and Prime Minister Charlot Salwai. <\/p>\n

Vanuatu has experienced 18 months of political instability, with three prime ministers in that time. <\/p>\n

The country\u2019s constitution requires an election within 60 days after the dissolution of parliament. There are more than 300,000 registered voters to elect representatives for 52 seats. <\/p>\n

Official results could be available only after several days as ballots have to be brought to Port Vila from outlying islands. <\/p>\n

Despite widespread damage from the earthquake, Vanuatu\u2019s Principal Electoral Officer Guilain Malessas said the distribution of ballot boxes would be completed by Thursday morning. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe are grateful for the good weather conditions currently in Vanuatu. The deployments are proceeding safely and on time,\u201d Malessas told the Vanuatu Daily Post on Wednesday. <\/p>\n

Among the buildings damaged in December\u2019s earthquake was one housing the new U.S. embassy, which only opened last year. <\/p>\n

Washington has been working to boost its diplomatic presence in the Pacific to counter what it sees as a growing threat from China, its main strategic rival. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

This post appeared first on cnn.com<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sydney (Reuters) \u2014 Voting began on Thursday to elect a new government in Vanuatu, a month after a 7.3-magnitude earthquake struck the Pacific island nation\u2019s capital Port Vila, killing at least 16 people, triggering landslides and damaging several major buildings. A snap election had to be called after Vanuatu President Nikenike Vurobaravu in November dissolved <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12064,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-12063","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12063\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}