Carlot Korman, Maxime

Vanuatuan politician, prime minister 1991-95 and in 1996. In December 1998 Carlot supported President Ati George Sokomanu's ousting of the prime minister, Father Walter Lini. These actions were ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court and Carlot was sentenced to five years' imprisonment in 1989. This decision was swiftly reversed by the Court of Appeal and, following the December 1991 general election, Carlot became prime minister, forming a coalition with Lini, who now led the Anglophone National United Party (NUP). Carlot's government restored diplomatic relations with France, which had been broken in 1987 over the issue of French support for the Union of Moderate Parties (UMP). The UMP lost power after the November 1995 general election, but, with a ‘hung parliament’ in which no party had an absolute majority, he was able to return briefly as prime minister between February and September 1996.

Drawn from the country's ethnic French and Roman Catholic community, he became leader of the UMP, a Francophone centrist party, in the 1980s, which was in opposition to the Vanua'aku Pati (VP), led by Walter Lini.

In 1997 Carlot left the UMP, which was now dominated by his fierce rival Serge Vohor, to form the Vanuatu Republican Party (VRP).