Lawmakers in Tuvalu are to elect a new prime minister on Monday, the election commissioner said, a month after the Pacific nation went to the polls.
Stormy weather and rough seas had prevented several lawmakers from traveling by boat from outer islands to the capital, Funafuti, to select a new leader.
All 16 elected members, who won their seats in elections last month, have now reached the capital after a boat bringing the final few arrived on Thursday.
Photo: AFP
Election commissioner Tufoua Panapa said that nominations would close tomorrow, with the vote to elect the new prime minister to be held on Monday at 11am.
“The governor-general will release the result straight after the election,” Panapa said.
Tuvalu’s Jan. 26 vote was closely watched in Beijing, Washington and Taipei amid rumors a new government could switch diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to China.
Until a new government is formed, pro-Taiwan Tuvaluan Prime Minister Kausea Natano, who lost his seat in the Funafuti constituency, remains in charge in a caretaker role.
After a new prime minister is chosen, there is speculation that Tuvalu — one of just 12 UN member states that formally recognize Taiwan — could flip its allegiance to China.
Neighboring Nauru severed diplomatic ties with Taiwan in favor of China last month, feeding rumors Tuvalu could follow.
Beijing has already poached some of Taiwan’s Pacific allies, convincing the Solomon Islands and Kiribati to switch recognition in 2019, before Nauru did the same.
Ahead of the election, Tuvaluan Minister of Finance Seve Paeniu floated the idea of the nation reviewing its diplomatic ties with Taiwan.
With no formal political parties, the process of selecting a prime minister and potentially changing government had already been expected to be slow, before bad weather forced further delays.
Japan has deployed long-range missiles in a southwestern region near China, the Japanese defense minister said yesterday, at a time when ties with Beijing are at their lowest in recent years. The missiles were installed in Kumamoto in the southern region of Kyushu, as Japan is attempting to shore up its military capacity as China steps up naval activity in the East China Sea. “Standoff defense capabilities enable us to counter the threat of enemy forces attempting to invade our country ... while ensuring the safety of our personnel,” Japanese Minister of Defense Shinjiro Koizumi said. “This is an extremely important initiative for
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) today accepted an invitation from Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to lead a delegation to China next month, saying she hopes to promote the peaceful development of cross-strait relations and bring stability to the Taiwan Strait. “I am grateful and happy to accept this invitation,” Cheng said in a statement from the KMT chairperson’s office. Cheng said she hopes both sides can work together to promote the peaceful development of cross-strait relations, enhance exchange and cooperation, bring stability to the Taiwan Strait and improve people’s livelihoods. At today's news conference, Cheng said any efforts to
MORE POPULAR: Taiwan Pass sales increased by 59 percent during the first quarter compared with the same period last year, the Tourism Administration said The Tourism Administration yesterday said that it has streamlined the Taiwan Pass, with two versions available for purchase beginning today. The tourism agency has made the pass available to international tourists since 2024, allowing them to access the high-speed rail, Taiwan Railway Corp services, four MRT systems and four Taiwan Tourist Shuttles. Previously, five types of Taiwan Pass were available, but some tourists have said that the offerings were too complicated. The agency said only two types of Taiwan Pass would be available, starting from a three-day pass with the high-speed rail and a three-day pass with Taiwan Railway Corp. The former costs NT$2,800
The nation’s fastest supercomputer, Nano 4 (晶創26), is scheduled to be launched in the third quarter, and would be used to train large language models in finance and national defense sectors, the National Center for High-Performance Computing (NCHC) said. The supercomputer, which would operate at about 86.05 petaflops, is being tested at a new cloud computing center in the Southern Taiwan Science Park in Tainan. The exterior of the server cabinet features chip circuitry patterns overlaid with a map of Taiwan, highlighting the nation’s central position in the semiconductor industry. The center also houses Taiwania 2, Taiwania 3, Forerunner 1 and
RSS