A French Polynesian candidate who failed to win a French Senate seat earlier this month wants the election outcome to be voided.
Vincent Dubois has lodged a complaint with the French High Commission in Tahiti to ask a French court to annul the vote which saw the vice-president, Nuihau Laurey, and an assembly member, Lana Tetuanui, elected as the territory's two new members of the French Senate.
Mr Dubois says the election was unfair because the two winning candidates had the support of the local government.
Teura Iriti and Vincent Dubois of French Polynesia's ruling Tahoeraa Huiraatira Party Photo: AFP
In February, Mr Dubois and Teura Iriti lost their French Senate seats after a French court ruled that a march by hundreds of the Tahoeraa Huiraatira supporters to the polling station on election day amounted to undue pressure on the 700-strong electoral college.
Mr Dubois has had the support of the leader of the Tahoeraa Huiraatira Party, Gaston Flosse, who is his father-in-law.
The Senate race exacerbated the rifts within the Tahoeraa and led to more than a dozen top members being expelled, which also deprived the party of its majority in the assembly.
