Vanuatu held snap general elections on Thursday, with six former prime ministers and crisis-hit incumbent Bob Loughman battling for votes in the Pacific archipelago nation.

After a campaign lasting just 10 days, ballots will be cast by up to 302,307 registered voters on some 80 islands spanning the Tropic of Capricorn.

The election was called two years earlier than expected after Loughman suspended Parliament to avoid a no-confidence vote he may have lost.

A public holiday has been declared for election day, but Edward Kaltamat, chairman of Vanuatu’s elections bureau, told AFP that turnout is expected to be low.

“The way the snap elections came about, the polling station, the candidates and the voters were not ready,” Kaltamat said. “Many expatriates had to rush to fill out power of attorney applications.”

To advertise in such a short window of opportunity, politicians turned to social media sites TikTok and Facebook to get their message across.

Australia provided a military aircraft, two helicopters and a seagoing vessel to transport the ballots.

“Judging by past elections, turnout is very low, which is a disregard for how costly an election is,” said Kaltamat, who oversees the vote.

“The recent snap elections have disrupted the election cycle,” he said, adding his office was having “difficulties” in coping with election activity.

As incumbents, Loughman and his Vanua’aku Pati may have a leg up on challengers, but some of his political rivals have names of their own.

Half of Vanuatu’s former prime ministers are on the list as candidates, although not all of them are considered serious contenders to form a government.

Seven women are also trying to crack Vanuatu’s all-male parliament.

The group includes tech CEO Celine Bareus, who is running as an independent and has drawn sizable crowds to campaign events ahead of Election Day.

The vote comes at a difficult time for the normally stable Melanesian nation.

Loughman’s dissolution of parliament sparked a political crisis, and opposition leader Ralph Regenvanu – who is not a former prime minister – launched a bitter complaint.

The Vanuatu Supreme Court supported the government by ruling that the dissolution was constitutional.

The country’s tourism-driven economy has been hit hard by the pandemic’s travel restrictions, and both China and the United States are vying for influence across the South Pacific.

With an caretaker government, Vanuatu had no leader to send to Washington for last month’s Pacific leaders’ meeting hosted by Joe Biden, instead sending Ambassador Odo Tevi.