Democracy in many disguises-Sham or genuine, the demand for a quick return to democracy solution
By Aisake Casimira
One of the predominant, if not central demands made of the interim government since the military ousted the Qarase government on the 5th of December 2006, was the “quick return to democracy” and, in the same breath “show us the road map to democracy”.
This demand was made not only by some local NGOs, lawyers, political parties and ousted politicians, but also from governments, organisations and NGOs outside the border. From Fiji’s closest neighbours - the Australian and New Zealand governments - to the farthest of governments and organisations - the US, EU, the Commonwealth, and at least one Human Rights organisation in the US have being singing the same tune.
From their point of view, it makes ‘democratic’ sense to legitimately re-establish ‘overnight majority rule’. This will ensure the resumption of bilateral aid, the release of project grants, the restoration of investor confidence and, hence, hasten economic recovery.
But, in a developing country like Fiji, it is not as simple as what these governments and organisations assumed. The “quick return to democracy” solution, in the form of holding general elections, for example, barely one year after the 1987 and 2000 coups respectively, if any thing, did not solve much of Fiji’s governance problems.
Rather, it left many issues unattended, in particular, the assessment of whether it was wise to pursue democracy at the same time that it was adopting a free market economic model.
One thing to note in this regard, as Amy Chua (2004:195) says, is that none of the western countries, including Australia and New Zealand ever adopted or implemented democracy and the free market or laissez-faire economic model at the same time.
[Chua](ibid) added that what helped these countries to implement democracy gradually (and not overnight, although overnight democracy is what has been touted by the western countries around the world through conditions on aid, objectives of governmental funding agencies and through bilateral and multilateral trade agreements), was the strong social welfare system they had.
This helped to cushion the worst impacts of the free market. The argument of the interim government, however, is that once the tasks set before them by the President - to review the electoral system, conduct the national census, revive the economy, etc - are achieved, then general elections can then be held.
The intention to care for the worst off in our society, the low income earners and the needy may not only be a necessary policy choice but may also be a wise one. If, in the meantime ‘democracy’ is suspended so as to ensure a stronger ‘democratic’ foundation for the future, then pursuing free market policies as well as solidifying and expanding our social welfare schemes may make a lot of sense, than simply a “quick return to democracy” with little substance to the process, with a weak social welfare system to cushion the impact of the free market.
The triumphalism view of the governments of New Zealand, Australia and the EU about democracy and their near fanatic insistence on a “quick return to democracy” solution rests in part on a certain hypocrisy. If universal suffrage were a reality rather than a sham, one might wonder whether most of today’s professed free marketeers, foreign investors and international financial organisations would be supporting it.
Indeed, even today, there are many within these countries and international organisations who, at the first sign of a possible trade-off between the free market and genuine democracy, make it clear that their first commitment is to the former.
A clear example of this is the New Zealand government’s recent commitment to continue talks with Fiji on the free trade agenda. Moreover, as one US economist said just after Venezuela’s democratically elected president Hugo Chavez was deposed in a military coup (and before he was reinstated), “Democracy is not necessarily the most efficient form of government.
It is better to be an open advocate of the priorities of the free market, (note here New Zealand’s ‘no problem attitude’ on continuing free trade talks with Fiji), than to be a self-congratulatory advocate of sham democracy.”
The difficulty that Australia, New Zealand and the EU seem to have with a genuine commitment to majority rule in Fiji is that genuine democracy could produce anti-market results such as justice, fairness and the application of democratic principles to the conduct of free trade and the free market, and the engendering of ethnic harmony in countries that have experienced ethnic tensions and violence in the past such as Fiji.
Instead, one would suspect that what New Zealand and Australian governments, in particular, really want by their call for a ‘quick return to democracy’ is sham democracy. Far from committing themselves to helping and assisting Fiji (and the Pacific Island countries) develop a genuine democratisation process, they seem to advocate a kind of democracy that will not interfere with their free market agenda and one that encourages ethnic dislike.
Being Fiji’s closest western neighbours, one would expect that Australia and New Zealand governments would have learned the lessons of history and not promote overnight majority rule (a form of democracy that even they have repudiated a long time ago) by their demand for a “quick return to democracy”.
Their assessment should have taught them that what is needed is their help in assisting Fiji (and the Pacific Island countries) to rethink the democratisation process over the past 2 or 3 decades. If genuine democracy and the free market are to be peacefully sustained and mutually beneficial, the process of democratisation cannot be reduced to carting ballot boxes and voting in national elections.
It has to mean more than overnight democracy, majority rule or merely freedom to vote and elect governments, although these are necessary factors. These countries seem to forget that there are many different models of democracy, even among themselves. Democracy can vary along a large number of axes: for example, the U.S style presidentialism versus the U.K style parliamentarism; first past the post electoral systems versus proportional representation; bottom up democratisation (starting with local village elections) versus top-down democratisation (starting with national, presidential elections).
These different versions of democracy can have significantly different effects on how the Pacific Islands govern themselves and their politics. The western countries one-sided view of democracy is quite revealing in the case of China. While China is fundamentally autocratic at the national level and has a bad human rights record, it has, according to politics professor, Minxin Pei (1998:68), been undergoing political reforms since the 1980s that are not even known to most western countries.
These political reforms have far reaching effects. He went on to add that throughout China, there are semi-open local village elections, which despite their limitations, offered a nontrivial measure of political participation, and more critically, legitimate competitive elections as an important part of the political process (ibid).
But the reason, says Minxin Pei, why these and other reforms happening at the local and national levels went unnoticed by the western countries is because their “… politicians and news media measure the progress of political reforms in other countries against a single yardstick - the holding of free and open elections at the national level.” (ibid) Indeed, democracy comes in many guises and it maybe neither the pakeha nor the kaivalagi’s road map to democracy that Fiji needs but one that is born out of the learnings of her recent and past experiences, however limited and ‘un-western-like’ it may be.
Note: Aisake Casimira works at the Pacific Conference of Churches. The views expressed here are his own and do not represent the views of the organisation where he works.
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