Serge Vohor
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Rialuth Serge Vohor (born 1955) is a politician from Vanuatu. He is a member of the Union of Moderate Parties, a conservative, Francophone political party. When his party came to power in 1991, Vohor became foreign minister of Vanuatu for the first of three times, until 1993. Vohor has been Prime Minister three times, from December 1995 to February 1996, from September 1996 to March 1998, and from July 28, 2004, to December 11, 2004.
After the 1998 parliamentary elections the Union of Moderate Parties could not form a coalition government, but Vohor still served as a prominent member of coalition governments led by other parties much of the time, serving as foreign minister again from 1999 until 2001. His party did not regain power in the 2002 parliamentary elections, but Vohor served as foreign minister for a third time from 2002 until 2003.
In the parliamentary elections of 2004, the Union of Moderate Parties lost several seats. It now contains 8 of the 52 seats in Parliament. However, Vohor managed to form a coalition including independents and members of other parties to be elected Prime Minister. Vohor was elected Prime Minister by the Parliament with 28 votes, with his opponent, Ham Lini receiving 24. The following month, Vohor formed a national unity government with Lini as deputy prime minister.
Vohor gained international attention when he established diplomatic relations with the Republic of China (Taiwan) without approval from the Council of Ministers. The Council of Ministers voted to void the move and asserted Vanuatu's continued recognition of the People's Republic of China under its terms of the One-China Policy. For weeks, both the ROC and PRC had diplomatic missions in Vanuatu with disagreement in the government over which government to recognize. At one point, Vohor punched the new ambassador from Beijing, Bao Shusheng, after being approached to explain why the flag of the Republic of China was still flying over the hotel where the Taiwanese representative was staying. He was ousted by Parliament in a no confidence vote in December 2004, and was replaced by Ham Lini soon afterward.
Since then Vohor has been the effective leader of the opposition. In March 2006 Vohor led an attempt to depose Lini through a no confidence vote, focusing on accusing Lini of weakness. However, the vote was defeated as not enough Parliament members who had supported the government defected.
