In a Fiji Times aritcle, T.R. Singh's analyzes the results from the 2008 New Zealand elections and describes how Helen Clark's ultimate election defeat, was a by-product of her sophmoric name-calling and the seismic shift of the East Indian electorate from Labour to the National party.
Notwithstanding the scorn developed from the not so smart-sanctions directed at the touring Fiji Soccer team, blurring the line between sports and politics; which inextricably morphed the once lovable Aunty Helen, into the wicked witch of the South.
Frank Bainimaram's call to ex-Fiji residents to vote Aunty Helen out, was the coup-de-grace; along with the ripple effects of the global credit crunch cum recession.
The curse of Bainimarama
By Thankur Ranjit Singh
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
T here is little love lost between former NZ Prime Minister Helen Clark and Fiji's Interim Prime Minister, Frank Bainimarama.
Relations between the once friendly neighbours descended to all time low and called each other names like school kids. The sort of things Helen Clark called Bainimarama also hurt a large section of Fijians and Indo Fijians, if feedback from local ethnic station, Radio Tarana is anything to go by.
While all the niceties about democracy is well and good, the situation in Fiji has been complicated, and leadership in New Zealand was not prepared to appreciate the homegrown problems and complications that did not have clear cut answers.
The past elections in Fiji gave all the indications of a fully fledged democracy, but the aristocratic and ascribed chiefly system determined the winners, more often than not on a racially divisive politics where the Methodist Church also played a crucial part.
While all are jumping on the bandwagon to see elections in Fiji after USA and now, New Zealand elections, many supporters of democracy in Fiji wish to overlook the fact that elections by themselves do not deliver democracy.
This has been so in Fiji, where despite the catch-word of elections, Fiji had been quite far from a model of democracy that NZ and Australia thought it was during the past, supposedly democratic regime under Qarase.
To remove the pseudo democracy, Frank Baini-marama took an unprecedented action to charter a better future for Fiji which the shades and mirages of democracy could not deliver. The bad blood between Clark and Bainimarama appeared to have started when Helen Clark tried to become the peacemaker between Qarase and Baini-marama in Wellington in late 2006, and was very confident of reaching a solution.
However when Bainima-rama was meeting NZ delegation in Wellington, it is alleged certain diplomats were trying to urge the military to overthrow and arrest him when he returned.
Of course the peace deal never held, and Qarase was unceremoniously removed.
Many are of the view that Helen Clark's failure to tame Bainimarama has been the main course of her and her government's animosity towards Fiji.
It went to the extent that those wishing to enter NZ have to fill a form saying that they are not related to Bainimarama or any military personnel.
Of course we know what a farce it was as many people bumped into spouses and siblings of soldiers which comprised the netball team that played in New Zealand recently.
But it was poor Fiji soccer goalkeeper Tamanisau who paid the price for telling the truth and loving a soldier's daughter. He was denied a visa because his military father in law (apparently father of fiancĂe) was outlawed by NZ authorities.
In fact it was New Zealand which suffered the scorn of world soccer body FIFA and paid a heavier price of losing the right to host the games in NZ. Many Kiwis viewed this immigration requirement a vindictive action and saw it as a nonsensical requirement, unprecedented in NZ history.
The bad blood between the two leaders went to such an extent that Bainimarama last month called on Fijians and Indo Fijian voters through Radio Tarana in Auckland to oust Helen Clark in the election. Bainimarama is reported as saying that Helen Clark wished to be Queen of the Pacific and there was nothing worse for Fiji than her.
Of course my personal analysis and other indications had shown that there has been a dramatic shift of Indo Fijians from the NZ Labour Party which they worshipped during David Lange's tenor.
While Fiji's Daily Post newspaper, in an erroneous editorial slated Bainimarama for his call, and called him to be more courteous in international diplomacy, it ignored all the names Clark had called Bainimarama.
The paper also amplified its ignorance by quoting wrong statistics that Indo Fijians only comprised some 6000 voters, hence were no political force here. The Indian population in NZ exceeds 104,000 with some half of them being Indo Fijians.
Now, coming to the call from Bainimarama, did it really have an effect on Fijian voters?
While people were in a mood for change, my analysis shows that there has been a swing away from Labour, and you need not be a rocket scientist to determine that.
In Helen Clark's Mt Albert electorate, she polled 65 per cent of votes in 2005 election while this went down to 42 per cent in the election held this month. a drop of almost one third.
That shows that her personal preference with the voters has degenerated dramatically.
On the other hand National Party's electorate votes jumped from 19 to 36 per cent, showing a shift. With some 2800 fewer people voting this year, Clark's personal majority was reduced by just over 6000 votes, showing a clear shift of her personal voters of the past years.
However percentage of party votes in her constituency went up by four per cent showing that while people there have preference for Labour party, their personal preference for her went down decisively.
In other electorates of important Labour ministers, the results were inversely related to that of Clark.
There was marginal reduction in personal preferences while the preference for the party showed greater shift away from Labour to National.
The trend in the new Labour leader, Phil Goff's Mt Roskill electorate was with three per cent reduction in personal votes with seven per cent drop in party votes.
Similar margin and trend was also seen in David Cunliffe's New Lynn Electorate.
However, Chris Carter in my electorate of Te Atatu showed a greater margin of shift in party votes which went down by some 12 per cent while Carter personally was seen as a popular candidate.
What happens in such cases is that while voters tend to vote for their popular candidates for electoral votes, the larger chunk of Party votes went to National.
Similar trend in other electorates was what spelt disaster for Labour and a decisive win for the National Party.
People in Fiji and elsewhere need to appreciate that in New Zealand, we give two votes, one to the candidate in the constituency (they call it electorate here) and the other to the party.
Of 122 seats in NZ Parliament, only 70 are contested. The other 52 are given to list candidates depending on the percentage of party votes.
This system is well geared to Fiji and I will explain this in greater detail some other time, and show how ignorant politicians are hoodwinking Fiji people about the proposed change in the electoral system.
Can they explain how come NZ, with a population of over four million has two Indians in its Parliament?
Rotumans and for that matter Indo Fijians and other minorities have nothing to fear from the proposed changes which reflects the system that NZ has.
From migrants point of view, while treatment towards and relations with Fiji may have had marginal and even questionable effect on the voter preference, the biggest issues that determined voter preferences hinged on soft stance of Labour on law and order situation, the soft stance on dole bludgers and the nurturing of a welfare state and lack of encouragement and support for New Zealand's engine room, the small businesses.
In an economic slump, it appeared people banked on a self-made millionaire, John Key, to rescue the country from its economic crisis.
It is hoped the National government and its partners can live up to the hope people had placed on John Key who had been passed on as a relatively rookie party leader and politician.
Whether Bainimarama's call contributed to shift in voters is still questionable and debatable, but it is hoped the National-led government will take a more matured stance towards an important neighbour and engage Fiji in fruitful discussion to resolve its political impasse.
John Key has surprised all by brokering a politically expedient and nation-uniting gesture in bringing diametrically opposed Rodney Hide's ACT and Peter Sharples Maori Party in his fold. It is hoped Key will nurture and promote a similar conciliatory acumen towards Fiji which the Labour Government failed to achieve.
* Thakur Ranjit Singh is an Auckland-based third generation Indo Fijian migrant community worker, a commentator on Fiji affairs and a human rights activist.
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