New Caledonia: loyalist Alcide Ponga elected president of the 18th government

It is once again a Kanak who has been placed at the head of the New Caledonian executive. But unlike his predecessor, Louis Mapou, who led the 17th government since February 2021, Alcide Ponga, 49, comes from a loyalist family.

If the eleven members of the new executive, appointed Tuesday by the elected representatives of the Congress of New Caledonia, had not managed to immediately choose a president, the second attempt, this Wednesday, will have been the right one. To achieve this election, it was necessary to witness the surprise resignation the day before of Philippe Dunoyer (Caledonia ensemble, center-right party behind the fall of the Mapou government) for a majority of votes to go to a candidate .

A career in the nickel industry

Alcide Ponga (Le Rassemblement, LR affiliate) thus received six votes against three for his opponent, Samuel Hnepeune (Caledonian Union, independence), the two elected officials from the United group (also independence) having abstained.

If the lifespan of the 18th government promises to be reduced due to the holding of provincial elections at the end of 2025 which will reshuffle the cards, the new strong man of New Caledonia is well aware of the task that faces him. ‘wait. “I feel the weight of responsibility. We all know the situation in which New Caledonia has found itself for seven months. What Caledonians are waiting for today is that we can work together and send a signal of hope. he declared immediately after his election.

This man with a strong physique, from a family from the north of the archipelago traditionally loyal to France, will be able to draw on his experience in the field. Originally from Kouaoua, a small mining village on the east coast, he made a career in the nickel industry. He was notably an executive at Koniambo Nickel SAS (KNS) until September 2019 before becoming special advisor to the president of the industrial group.

Holder of a master’s degree in political science obtained in 2001 in Toulouse, it was in 2013 that he discovered the realities of this discipline by getting involved within the Rally, thus perpetuating the values ​​of loyalty to France which made the his family’s history.

His father, Théophile, was a member of the RPCR (the ancestor of the Rassemblement); his uncle, Maurice, was twice elected to the European Parliament, always under the same colors, and his mother, Léontine, was also elected in the Northern province. Alcide ran for municipal elections in his town of 1,500 inhabitants in 2014. He has been mayor since. In June 2024, he was elected president of the Rally, for which he had been interim president since the end of 2022, thus becoming the first Kanak to assume this office in the historic loyalist party, founded in July 1977 by Jacques Lafleur.

In the midst of the riots, at the end of June, it was again he who was chosen by his party to carry its colors during the legislative elections following the dissolution of the National Assembly by Emmanuel Macron. He obtained 36.18% of the votes in the first round. But lost in the second round to Emmanuel Tjibaou, candidate of the Caledonian Union, who won 57.12% of the votes.

A fierce defender of French Caledonia

A man of grassroots and conviction, Alcide Ponga will now have to prove that he can unite beyond his camp to hold the helm of this 18th collegial government. “We will have to quickly get ourselves in working order, we don’t have much time, but everything we can gather will be a gain to turn the political page and continue towards better auspices for New Caledonia, as the elders did for us thirty years ago”, the new president, just elected, announced this Wednesday.

The separatists, for their part, will have to deal with a loyalist, but Kanak, president. Could this be likely to change the methods of discussion? For Samuel Hnepeune, his defeated rival of the day, “it’s not the packaging that counts, it’s the content, he sweeps away. The strategy opposite is not ours. » If in 2020 he led an opening list in the municipal elections of his commune in which even independence activists appeared, Alcide Ponga remains a fierce defender of French Caledonia.