Hirohiti Tefaarere

Hirohiti Tefaarere (born 19 June 1954) is a French Polynesian anti-nuclear activist, trade unionist, politician and former Cabinet Minister who served as President of the Assembly of French Polynesia from 2004 to 2005. He was a member of Aia Api and the Union for Democracy. In 2019 he was elected president of anti-nuclear organisation Mururoa e Tatou.

Tefaarere worked for the Direction centrale des renseignements généraux, a police intelligence agency, before becoming general secretary of the A Tia I Mua union.[2] While still on the payroll of the French Interior Ministry he organised bloackades in Papeete against the government of Gaston Flosse.[2][3] In 1995 he led further riots against the resumption of French nuclear testing. He was arrested along with 15 members of his union, jailed,[4][5] and tortured by French police.[1] He was later president of the O Oe To Oe Rima union.[6]

In late 2004, during the presidency of Oscar Temaru, he led a group of Union for Democracy MPs who challenged Temaru, delaying the budget[7] and boycotting the Assembly in an effort to gain ministerial positions.[8][9] Following the annulment of the 2004 election in the Windward isles in November 2004, Assembly President Antony Géros lost his seat, and Tefaarere was elected president of the Assembly.[10] Géros was re-elected in the resulting by-election, and most Union for Democracy MPs supported him as their candidate for Speaker.[11] Tefaarere ran against Géros, forcing the election into a second round of voting.[12] Géros was successful in the second round, ousting Tefaarere as Assembly President.[13] In September 2005 he was made Minister of small enterprise, industry and mining.[14] He resigned from the post in March 2006.[15] Temaru refused to acknowledge his resignation in an effort to keep his replacement, Lela Temauri, in the Assembly for an upcoming vote,[16] but the delay was found to be unreasonable by the courts, and Tefaarere re-entered the Assembly.[17]

He was re-elected in the 2008 election, and left the Aia Api party.[18] Following the formation of Gaston Flosse's government, he was the To Tatou Aia candidate for Assembly President, but lost to Temaru, 27 votes to 28.[19] In August 2008 he formed the A rohi party.[18] He was subsequently made president of SETIL, the company in charge of French Polynesia's airports.[20] He lost his seat in the 2013 election.[21]

In January 2009 he was summoned for questioning for abuse of public funds as part of the OPT scandal. He subsequently accused the court of being politicised and corrupted by Freemasons.[22] In January 2011 he was convicted of abuse of funds and fined US$22,000 and barred from office for two years.[23] The conviction was overturned on appeal in June 2011.[24] In August 2012 he was fined US$1000 for contempt of court for threatening a judge investigating his management of SETIL.[25] In July 2015 he was convicted of attempted embezzlement of public funds while managing SETIL, and sentenced to three years imprisonment, with two suspended, and fined XPF1,000,000.[26] The conviction was upheld on appeal in June 2016, but the sentence reduced to two years suspended.[27]

In October 2019 he was elected president of anti-nuclear organisation Mururoa e Tatou.[28][29]