Kiribati election unofficial results: “This is all a community effort, we ask each other”

Kiribati Parliament Building
photo: RNZ Pacific/Korowa Ka’uta

The first round of interim results for the Kiribati election were released on Wednesday. Radio Kiribati It is reported that the counting of 22 out of 23 constituencies has been completed.

Those who retained their seats included incumbent President Taneti Mamao from Onotoa and opposition leader Tessi Elia Lambourne from Abemama.

Six MPs from the last parliament, including a cabinet minister, reportedly lost their seats.

As of Thursday afternoon, counting had been completed for 41 of the 44 seats in parliament.

So far, in 16 of those seats, no candidate has received more than 50% of the vote, the threshold for an outright victory.

This means that the three candidates with the highest votes in each seat will face off in a runoff election next Monday.

Counting of votes continues in the Tarawa Tainano constituency, the country’s largest constituency, with 22 candidates vying for three seats.

Kiribati journalist Rimon Rimon
photo: Facebook/Rimon Rimon

RNZ Pacific’s Kiribati correspondent Rimon Rimon said final results were expected later on Thursday.

“I think the whole country spent the entire (Wednesday) evening doing its own count,” he said.

“For Kiribati, we need to have a central system of counting results that can help the people.

“All results coming out are unofficial reports.”

Rimon said Radio Kiribati was broadcasting live all night on Wednesday, “so people were glued to the radio.”

“We are still waiting for the last few constituencies where the counting has not yet been completed.

“We don’t have a website that we can go to, so it’s just a community-level effort to ask each other and they give us the information that’s available.”

However, Thursday NightRimon said the Kiribati Ministry of Culture and Internal Affairs published the election results “on the Ministry of Culture and Internal Affairs website without any official announcement to the public”.

He urged the people of Kiribati to follow Official results from the Ministry of Education website.

Meanwhile, Parliamentary Secretary Eni Tekanene announced that the first sitting of Parliament will be held on September 13.