Radio New Zealand - Te Reo Irirangi o Aotearoa

Sandras out of French Polynesia’s A Tia Porinetia

Posted at 02:55 on 21 February, 2013 UTC

There has been a shake-up of French Polynesia’s newly formed opposition A Tia Porinetia group.

It has issued a statement, saying Bruno Sandras has quit amid apparent disagreement over where he was likely to be put on the list in the April territorial election.

The group insisted that the list in his electorate be led by a woman and not him.

Mr Sandras is a former member of the French National Assembly who had secured his seat while belonging to the Tahoereaa Huiraatira of Gaston Flosse.

Earlier this month, the appeal court confirmed a three-month suspended jail sentence for Bruno Sandras for his role in the so-called phantom job case, which dealt with an illicitly funded system to advance the policies of his Tahoeraa Huiraatira dating back to the 1990s.

At the time, he was a leading unionist.

The A Tia Porinetia group is the third largest force in the territorial assembly and in the main made up of disaffected former Tahoeraa politicians, led by Teva Rohfritsch.