General election, 16 January 2025

Earthquake, 17 December 2024 

On 17 December 2024, a 7.3 magnitude earthquake hit Port Vila in Vanuatu. The earthquake caused electricity and water outages and led to the collapse of a large building in the Central Business District . Landslides triggered by the earthquake led to widespread infrastructural damage, such as road access being obstructed, closure of the airport and the seaport being inaccessible. The National Emergency Operations Centre (NEOC) provided emergency response together with the Pacific Humanitarian Team and UN agencies (UN OCHA 2024).  

On 21 December 2024, 1,698 people were displaced in evacuation shelters and host households. By 15 January 2025, a total of 80,000 were reported as affected by the earthquake (UN OCHA 2025). At least 14 deaths and 265 injuries were confirmed by 10 January 2025 (ICRC 2024; RNZ 2025). Rebuilding the damage done to Port Vila is expected to cost about USD $230 million, according to the government’s Recovery Unit (Hawkins 2025b). 

Impact on the electoral process 

The President of Vanuatu dissolved Parliament after a Motion of No Confidence on 18 November 2024. As the Constitution states that elections must be held no later than 60 days following dissolution, the snap parliamentary election was planned for 14 January 2025 (Vanuatu Electoral Office n.d.). Opposition MPs twice tried and failed to cancel the snap election twice, including by trying to stay the dissolution of parliament (McKay 2025; Hawkins 2024).  

Following the earthquake, since many polling stations needed to be relocated, the Vanuatu Electoral Commission postponed the election from 14 to 16 January, the latest possible date allowed by law to hold the election (Hawkins 2025a).   

In the aftermath—reported in January 2025—there was an increase in gang violence, gender-based violence and theft. Many displaced citizens could not afford basic necessities and the upheaval of daily life was linked to an increase in reported assault cases (Hopkins 2025). With the uptick in crime across the country, the police were called in to oversee the security of the polling stations on election day (Duff 2025).  

As the earthquake forced many polling stations to relocate, the Electoral Commission expected many voters to attend the wrong polling stations and/or lack appropriate documentation. In anticipation, election officials verified all voters as a resident of the constituency and got ID cards checked to ensure they were issued before voter registration closed (Hawkins 2025a). 

The voter turnout was around 69 per cent as compared to 44 per cent in 2022 (International IDEA n.d.).