Kiribati president retains seat in first stage of national election

(Reuters) – Kiribati’s pro-China President Taneti Maamau and opposition leader Tessie Lambourne won their seats in a national election held in the remote Pacific Island nation, unofficial results showed on Thursday.

Voters cast ballots on Wednesday for 44 parliamentary seats, and unofficial results a day later showed more than a dozen seats will likely require a second round of voting on Monday, under an election system that requires a clear winner.

Kiribati’s parliament is scheduled to sit on Sept. 13 for newly declared lawmakers to select a shortlist of candidates for president, who will be decided in a direct vote by the population later in the year.

A nation of 115,000 residents, Kiribati is considered strategic despite being small, because it is relatively close to Hawaii and controls more than 3.5 million sq km (1.4 million sq miles) of Pacific Ocean.

Under Maamau’s presidency, Kiribati has drawn closer to China after switching ties from Taiwan in 2019.

(Reporting by Kirsty Needham in Sydney; Editing by Alison Williams)