The Union of Moderate Parties (Union des Partis Moderés) is a conservative Francophone political party in Vanuatu. At the last legislative elections, 1 September 2008, the party won 7 out of 52 seats. Until 2008, it was by far the most popular political party among the French-speaking community in Vanuatu.
The party's influence grew after internal difficulties caused the Vanua'aku Pati government to fall in 1991. The UMP was the governing party in Vanuatu from 1991 to 1998. Former prime ministers Maxime Carlot Korman and Serge Vohor came from this party. However, the UMP suffered internal struggles of its own, and in the late 1990s, Corman left to form the Vanuatu Republican Party. Serge Vohor who hails from the Island Of Santo remains the president of UMP. It won 12 seats in the 1998 elections, 15 seats in the 2002 elections and 9 seats in the 2004 elections. Despite the obvious setback, Vohor was able to form a coalition government in August 2004, but lost a confidence vote four months later. From then until the 2008 elections, Vohor and the UMP sometimes were coalition partners in the Lini government, and at other times were in the opposition, serving as the largest opposition force. After the 2008 elections, the party remains an important political grouping, but is not expected to form the next government.
Serge Vohor has led the party since 1988. In February 2012, he was re-elected leader of the party, prior to the general election in October. This marks a longevity record for the leadership of any political party in Vanuatu.
Famous quotes containing the words union of, union, moderate and/or parties:
“Union of Religious Sentiments begets a surprising confidence and Ecclesiastical Establishments tend to great ignorance and corruption, all of which facilitate the Execution of Mischievous Projects.”
—James Madison (1751–1836)
“If the union of these States, and the liberties of this people, shall be lost, it is but little to any one man of fifty-two years of age, but a great deal to the thirty millions of people who inhabit these United States, and to their posterity in all coming time.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)
“I am thankful for small mercies. I compared notes with one of my friends who expects everything of the universe, and is disappointed when anything is less than best, and I found that I begin at the other extreme, expecting nothing, and am always full of thanks for moderate goods.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Men are to be guided only by their self-interests. Good government is a good balancing of these; and, except a keen eye and appetite for self-interest, requires no virtue in any quarter. To both parties it is emphatically a machine: to the discontented, a “taxing- machine;” to the contented, a “machine for securing property.” Its duties and its faults are not those of a father, but of an active parish-constable.”
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881)