The Republic of Vanuatu, formerly the Anglo-French condominium of the New Hebrides, consists of sixty-six islands situated in the southwest Pacific Ocean, about 1,200 miles northwest of Australia. Over 130 different languages are spoken among its 146,400 people. After 1906, the British and French maintained parallel administrative systems and imposed their own linguistic, religious, and cultural divisions on an already fragmented society.

Emerging from exploitation, division and violence, Vanuatu achieved independence on July 30, 1980, despite the opposition of secessionist movements, the French administration, French settlers, and francophone islanders. Vanuatu is a member of the United Nations, strictly nuclear-free, outspokenly anti-colonial, and until 1988, was the only South Pacific member of the Non Aligned Movement. Yet, Vanuatu is also a member of the Commonwealth.

Vanuatu's constitution establishes a parliamentary form of government with a president as head of state. The president's role is largely ceremonial. He is elected for a term of five years by an electoral college which includes the parliament and the Council of Chiefs. Executive power is vested in the Executive Council. It consists of the prime minister and up to nine ministers chosen by the prime minister from among the members of Parliament. The prime minister is elected by Parliament from among its members, and can be dismissed by their vote of no confidence.

The unicameral Representative Assembly is composed of thirty-nine members elected in fourteen constituencies for four-year terms. A system of proportional representation is employed and all citizens over the age of eighteen are eligible to vote. Parliament elects a speaker to lead the assembly and to act as president if the incumbent is absent from Vanuatu.

The constitution directs that the National Council of Chiefs be consulted about all matters concerning tradition and custom. The council consists of traditional chiefs elected by their peers. It plays a particularly important advisory role on land matters, since the constitution declares that all land, a significant proportion of which was alienated under colonial rule, belongs to the indigenous custom owners. The council also plays a part in making constitutional appointments.

Some constitutional provisions were designed to protect the rights of francophones in the face of an emerging anglophone dominance in the late 1970s.

Thus, French was included as one of the national languages along with English and Bislama (Vanuatu pidgin) and the office of ombudsman was created. Francophone factions insisted on constitutional provisions for regional councils on the islands of Tanna and Santo in the hope that these would provide some counterweight to central government. However, when the 1979 elections brought anglophone parties to power in both these councils, riots ensued, the councils never met, and they were removed from the constitution in 1980. In their place, Vanuatu has established eleven elected local government councils with limited powers devolved to them by central government legislation.

Vanuatu has a Supreme Court, which deals inter alia with matters of constitutional interpretation, and a Court of Appeal. Village or island courts, dealing largely with the application of customary law, may also be established with a right of appeal to higher courts, including the Land Appeals Court.

Formerly, the Vanua'aku Party (VP), led by Father Walter Lini until 1991, was the dominant force in politics since its foundation (as the New Hebrides National Party) in 1971. It had a strong organizational network throughout the country, and a mass following among anglophone (often Protestant), citizens. It won a comfortable majority of the seats in Parliament in both the 1979 and 1983 elections (twenty-four seats in 1983), and Lini survived several votes of no confidence with ease. However, following some rather tumultuous politics in the early 1990s, Father Lini was finally replaced as VP leader and prime minister by Donald Kalpokas. In the national elections of December 1991, Maxim Carlot, leader of the Union of Moderate Parties (UMP) with its support base primarily among the francophone (usually Catholic) electorate, narrowly defeated Kalpokas and the factioned VP, with Father Lini and his newly formed National United Party (NUP) coming in a distant third. A coalition was quickly formed between the UMP and the NUP in order to hold on to the reigns of government while moving quickly to replace about thirty senior officials regarded as too clsoely associated with the previous administration. The political situation remains fluid. However, Vanuatu's economic policies are generally seen as "orthodox" despite its politics, and considerable income is earned by selling tax haven services to international capitalist enterprises. Vanuatu's main resources are agricultural, dominated by copra, beef and cocoa while the re-export of petroleum and fish products also makes up part of its export earnings.