A French Polynesian assembly member, Heifara Izal, has changed sides twice in a day to first end and then restore the new government's one-vote majority in the assembly.
Ms Izal quit the camp of Gaston Tong Sang's coalition by notifying the assembly president in writing.
But later in the day she wrote another letter to the assembly president advising him that her Aia Api Party instructed her to return to the group she had quit.
Last week, she voted with the opposition to force the assembly to meet while the government had asked for a deferral of the sitting.
Ms Izal entered politics last year to replace her partner, Emile Vernaudon, who was prevented from standing because he was in jail as part of a corruption probe.
Weeks after she won her seat, Mr Vernaudon made French history when he became the first politician in French history to be elected mayor while being in prison.
The Mahina council then installed him in office by placing a ribbon around his photograph in the mayor's chair.
