Palau Finally Declares New President
Voters on the small Pacific island chain of Palau have elected as their president Ngiratkel Etpison, a businessman who is a strong advocate of newly defined ties with the United States.
Etpison, the 63-year-old governor of Ngatpang state, was declared the winner late Thursday, a government spokesman said on Friday. The margin of victory for Etpison was 31 votes. More than 9,000 ballots were cast in the Nov. 2 election.
The spokesman said Etpison was a strong advocate of the Compact of Free Association, which would give the U.S. Trust Territory more say over its own matters, while leaving Washington in charge of foreign and military matters.
Last August, Palauans voted in favor of the compact for the sixth time in a referendum, but the Supreme Court in Koror had challenged the validity of the vote.
The new president, who heads the Palauan Chamber of Commerce and owns a hotel, a retail store and shares in a Japanese fishing concern, will be inaugurated on Jan. 1.
Kuniwo Nakamura, a 45-year-old senator, won the vice presidency of Palau, a string of 200 islands that which lies 500 miles east of the Philippines and has a population of 15,000.
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