Lini, Walter Hadye (1942–1999)

Vanuatuan centre-left politician and priest, chief minister 1979–80 and prime minister 1980–91. A member of the New Hebrides National Party, later named the Vanuaaku Pati (VP), he campaigned for the return of land to the aboriginal Melanesian population. He became chief minister in 1979 and, on independence in 1980, prime minister of the new Republic of Vanuatu. On the basis of a controversial non-aligned foreign policy and a ‘Melanesian socialist’ domestic programme, he was re-elected in 1983 and 1987, and survived an unconstitutional challenge to his leadership in 1988, engineered by President Sokomanu, who was later imprisoned. The VP split in 1991 and was defeated in elections that year, when a coalition government was formed. Lini, who had been replaced as VP leader by Donald Kalpokas, formed, in 1991, the breakaway National United Party (NUP), which later split in 1993. Lini returned to government in late 1996 as justice and culture minister in a coalition government led by Serge Vohor, and after the March 1998 general election he became deputy prime minister and justice and interior minister in a coalition led by Kalpokas.

Born on Pentecost Island, Lini trained for the Anglican priesthood in the Solomon Islands and New Zealand, being ordained in 1980.