Fiji's Beta Democracy- A Moral Imperative: Video Expose

Online Videos by Veoh.com

Social Bookmarking

Club Em Designs

Electoral Reform in Fiji- Beta Democracy 3.0

An exceptionally honest opinion article from New Zealand based writer regarding Fiji's political landscape, which was published in a Fiji Times article.
The excerpt:

Are we ready for elections

THAKUR RANJIT SINGH
Wednesday, July 30, 2008

What we learn from history is that we do not learn from history. I have said this before and reiterate that in the case of Fiji our leaders and politicians have short memories.

What we should have learnt from the 2000 attempted coup is that no political interests should be involved in any interim government. Qarase and his motley crowd used the interim period to use and abuse tax-payer resources to trump up their political parties and political career. Fiji paid a heavy price in the Agriculture Scam and a shady government. One would have thought we learnt from our mistakes.

When Frank Bainimarama made his move in December, 2006, one would have thought that he had learnt from the escapades of the SDL Party as interim government.
Therefore, we thought that the interim government of 2006 would be made up of apolitical people who would not aspire for political position or opportunity or abuse their positions to drum up political support and because of this may be placed in a conflict of interest situation. This conflict could arise between what is good for the country and what is good for your political party.

The interim Government has more than one leader and politicians from active political parties and this has given the interim regime some disrespect, disrepute and some actions and decisions that may be deemed to border on political-fertilisation rather than something that is good for the country.

With daily happenings in Fiji now, people like me have become very embarrassed. This is because when Frank took power in 2006, some considered it as God sent, and a saviour who had come to rescue democracy from irresponsible and racist leadership.

People like us in New Zealand went public and supported his actions, attracting a great deal of contempt from friends and relatives. However, the news of military personnel gaining financially from their positions embarrasses people like me who had regarded the military as a saviour. There appears to be a situation that all those who are in power have a habit of putting their fingers in the till.

It appears the military has lost its plot, and the sooner it is put on track the better it is for the nation as a whole, and for people like me to redeem our respect for supporting the initial assault on a so called democracy.

However, despite the antics of military and its political cabinet ministers, there is one thing that I still agree with Bainimarama and the interim Government that Fiji is not yet ready for elections.

I agree we have many problems that need to be sorted out before we can be ready for elections. Calls for early and premature elections in Fiji by the so called bigger brothers (and bullying ones at that) are unreasonable and unwarranted, and undue interference. These countries have achieved their political development and destiny of democratic civilisation without external interference that Fiji is facing from these countries.

Fiji is at a political metamorphosis where Britain was some 600 years ago, USA was some 250 years ago, Australia and New Zealand were some 150 to 200 years ago and India was about 70 years ago.

All these countries have gone through various stages of political development involving wars, civil unrest, partitions, racial wars, penal colonies, massacres and many upheavals before they achieved the democracy that they are proud of and chiding Fiji to emulate.

At least the consolation is that Fiji has been spared the loss of lives that others suffered; nevertheless it has been facing political unrest since its independence some four decades ago.

So many elections since then have not been able to solve its problems, so what makes them think that election in March 2009 will solve Fiji's problems. These countries need to understand that even in the past elections, real democracy had never been achieved. It had merely been a sham of democracy; in many instances autocratic leaders used their traditional powers and influence to masquerade as democratic leaders.

The international community has to realise and learn that democracy measured by election is not a solution. Despite so many elections, Fiji's problems remain unresolved. Every coup exposes wounds that need to be healed and the deep underlying problems that need to be attended to.

Before Fiji can gain stability and effectively return to some degree of democracy a number of serious issues need to be addressed and resolved.

While Father Kevin Barr, in his earlier writings, has already spoken of them, I wish to repeat them here. Among them is the agenda of the nationalists who want Fiji for Fijians and Fiji as a Christian state. Another issue is the racially explosive mix of fundamentalist religion and extreme nationalism found in Assembly of Christian Churches in Fiji, which has a strong influence on the political and social process.

In addition, the inherent conflicts and tensions within Fijian, chiefly between families and confederacies, are a smouldering volcano, ready to erupt.

There is a need to remove the race-based politics and election and an electoral system and process that gives same weight and importance to every vote. The current system is flawed in this respect.

For example, while Peni in Kadavu is one of the three thousand voters who elect his representative, his cousin Viliame on the other hand is one of the some eighteen thousand voters who elect his Member of Parliament in Nadroga. What this means is that Peni's Kadavu vote is worth some six times more than Viliame's Nadroga vote.

There are numerous other examples of such anomaly, discrepancy and lack of fairness that smacks on the face of democracy which promotes same value for all votes. Therefore, Fiji's elections cannot be really called fair unless this problem is sorted out.

The other lament is influence of chiefs over their voters and conflict of democracy with the ascribed chiefly status.

While some chiefs and their followers have been crying for constitutional rule and rule of law, they did not blink an eyelid to prevent the Charter team free access to deliver information to Fijian villagers. I wonder whether they knew about the constitutional requirements and provisions on freedom of movement and information.

It is essential for Australia and New Zealand to understand how democracy works in poor Third World countries. They need to realise how the leaders in such countries can exploit it for their personal and political gains while showing all the niceties of a democratic government. Does Mugabe come to mind?

Deposed Prime Minister Qarase is already on record that he would bring back the controversial Qoliqoli Bill and other racially biased controversial laws that country like New Zealand has already thrown in their parliamentary trash bin.

What then, will New Zealand rescue Fiji from its democracy that the new government would have got through an unfair electoral system and a racially entrenched ultra-nationalistic slogan?

What then, who or what will then prevent the military from repeating its action and how long will the yoyo coup rule Fiji?

Mere timetables for elections are not permanent solutions to Fiji's problems. What we need is serious consideration and strategies to address the fundamental problems with a view to eradicating the coup culture.

We have gone so far towards looking for a solution that we are at a point of no return. We have suffered more than enough in search of a solution; we shall strive to find it. Fiji should be allowed time to resolve its problems, once and for all, at its own pace and in its own time.



- Thakur Ranjit Singh is an Auckland-based political commentator on Fiji issues, an advocate of good governance and a proponent of democracy that delivers social justice to all its people.

E-mail: thakurjixtra.co.nz

Social Bookmarking

Club Em Designs

Back To Square One: SP Forum Ministers Contact Group.

In a follow up to the recent SiFM post titled "Fiji Reengages Pacific Community On Its Own Terms" which seems to have foreshadowed the eventual outcome.

Radio NZ correspondent, Jane Patterson radio podcast(MP3) covers the fact finding mission of the Forum Minister's contact group and the podcast includes quotes from Winston Peters and Laisenia Qarase.

Radio Australia's podcast of Pacific Beat, also comments on the results of the Forum contact group's visit.

Fiji TV news segment (video posted below)featured the final press conference of the contact group.



Kiwi blog posting titled "Fiji elections" also deliberated on the pledge for 2009 elections. Another New Zealand Blog: Whale Oil, whose latest posting discussed the comments of ousted P.M, Laisenia Qarase and the sad realities he faces.

The so called fact finding group eventually compiles a report for the South Pacific Forum meeting in Niue in August, which Fiji will be sharing the top of agenda with Climate change, according to a Radio Australia article.

Realistically, it is crystal clear that neither the Forum nor the Trans-Tasman neighbours would have any muscle to force the issue of elections in Fiji, besides the smart sanctions and more rhetoric.



Even with US State Secretary, Condoleeza Rice's upcoming visit to the region next week, will not make an iota of difference in the outcome, other than being seen as bragging rights to Winston Peters and Helen Clark's upcoming election campaign.



Social Bookmarking

The Coalition of Client States.

Given that the subject of Fiji's democracy has been deliberated by the Pacific Forum recently, the final abattoir of that transition lies with the Interim Government.

Despite the veiled threats reported by Newstalk article, made by NZ Foreign Minister while pushing Fiji to comply with the Pacific Forum's communique; the question of the road map and its accelerated time-tables (proposed by Fiji's neighbors) was also addressed and dismissed by an opinion article written by the Archbishop of Fiji, Petero Mataca.

This is the excerpt:

Now is the time for charting a gracious new Fiji

PETERO MATACA
Saturday, March 17, 2007


There is a story that I would like to begin this reflection with. A minister of the United Church of Canada, who ran a drop-in centre for homeless people in downtown Toronto, Canada, had planned to raise enough money to keep the centre running.

His dilemma was how could he raise the money he needed to do that? He later shared his problem, not intentionally though, with one of the regulars to the drop-in centre.

As the minister recalled, to his amazement and humility, the homeless man emptied his pockets of all sorts of rubbish until he found and gave his only dollar coin to start off the fundraising.

I am sure we could recall many such instances in our own experiences.

In the story about the widow's offering (Mark 12:41-44; Luke 21:1-4), Jesus made the observation that the woman, with the little she had, gave everything while those who have and could have given more, only gave from the surplus of their riches.

By Jewish law, each person is required to give and in that respect, by law, the wealthy people did their religious duty.

But the main point of the story is not about the rich and the poor, although it is a theme. Rather, it is about recognising that giving and sharing what one has is a necessary part of our human dignity.

The giving of the rich people in the story is nothing more than a legal requirement and means little to their dignity, whereas, the widow's giving means much more to her dignity as a human being. There is a detail in the Jewish law that specifies that even a person dependent on charity must give charity.

On the face of it, the rule is absurd. Why give enough money to one poor person so that he or she can give to another poor person?

It would be much more logical and efficient if the money is given directly to the second poor person.

But, the Jewish Rabbis, by making this law, understood correctly, in my view, that giving is an essential part of our human dignity.

The insistence that we provide the poor and the needy with enough money so that they themselves can give is a profound insight into the human condition we are not only capable of being greedy and selfish, which we must always guard against, but equally capable of giving, sharing and caring for one another.

In this Lenten season, I invite all Catholic priests, religious, lay people and women and men of good will to reflect upon this theme. Whatever one wishes to sacrifice or wishes to do better during this season of Lent, these resolutions must and need to be done with a spirit of giving and sharing.

When we give up or share what is most precious to us, our experiences become meaningful and beneficial to ourselves and to those we live with and to our respective communities.

When we wish to do better in some things that we had neglected in the past, and which requires the sacrifice of our time and energy to other non-essential things, our experience will mean something to us and those whom we love and care about.

Giving and sharing is an essential part of our dignity as human beings.

To give and to share is to go beyond the care of the self-centred self. This is the message that I wish to share with all Catholic priests, religious and lay people and women and men of good will in this Lenten season.

Furthermore, in the spirit of sharing and giving, I wish to offer the following reflections on some of our important national issues.

The poor must be looked after. As the above stories show, the poor and the needy among us are the ones who can teach us about giving and sharing.

In my New Year message, I designated, after consultation, that this year is a "year of solidarity with the disadvantaged, the poor and the stranger" for the Archdiocese.

We repeatedly read and heard from our local leaders that the poor are the most affected by the coup's impact on the economy.

Unfortunately, as in such cases, it is true, and in this regard, we must stand in solidarity with them.

But we must stand in solidarity with them as they are the key to our moving forward. How is this possible?

This is because knowing what they know about living in poverty, their demand on the rest of us to move forward and find ways to cushion the impacts has a far greater moral claim on our resources.

I challenge us all civil society, business organisations, religious and cultural institutions to find ways of highlighting the demand of the poor for the nation to move forward and find creative ways of helping each other.

Not to be in solidarity with the call of the poor to move forward creatively would be to invite consequences that our fragile social fabric may not be able to hold.

Resolution of legal issues

There is a need to seek clarity and closure on some of our significant outstanding constitutional and legal issues. Some of these concern the suspension of the Chief Justice and the subsequent appointment of an Acting Chief Justice, the independence of the judiciary, and the ousting of the Qarase-led Government.

The resolution of these constitutional and legal matters is crucial to rebuilding our sense of respect for and confidence in the rule of law and public order, and in the Constitution and its central place in our public life. The church, therefore, calls on the Interim Government to ensure that these legal concerns are independently and transparently acted upon.

Respect for human life

Respect for human life is a deeply rooted value in all our religious and cultural traditions. Two lives were lost, allegedly, as a result of military beatings during their time in detention. Again, I wish to reiterate the absoluteness of this principle. If we allow the two to become three and more, we will be in danger of reducing the value of human life from being absolute to relative and when that happens, everything of real value and essential to our living together, such as tolerance and respect, are in danger of being lost as well. In this regard, the church wishes to again remind the military and those in leadership positions to do everything possible to prevent a third loss of life during their tenure in power.

Heed the need for justice

Following from the above, I urge those who are responsible for the administration of justice to deal with the allegations surrounding the deaths of the two men while in custody or as a result of the alleged beatings while in detention. This is to be done truthfully and credibly. Forgiveness will not be possible until the truth is told about these events. The families and relatives of these men will not be fully free to move forward with their lives without having a sense that justice has been done to absolve them of their anger and hatred.

Therefore, the church urges the Interim Government to properly investigate the allegations made and bring to trial those who perpetrated these crimes.

Foreign interventions

At least, in Fiji, most of us know that the coup was illegal and that the Interim Government didn't have our consent to rule.

At least by now, all of us in Fiji know that there is a "road map" to general elections, and, while we may differ on the timeframe, at least, we know that until then, we will do whatever we can to hold the Interim Regime accountable to the fundamental principles of human decency.

The incessant and condescending calls for Fiji to hold general elections within a year or two from the governments of New Zealand, Australia and, lately, the US, from the point of view of convention, is understandable but shallow and lacking proper contextual assessment.

I say this for two good reasons. Firstly, as Andrew Murray (2007:3), a political scientist at the Catholic Institute in Sydney recently observed, "In a country, where local communities are run by chiefs, a less democratic form of government is not as troubling as it would be elsewhere" at least while we rectify and strengthen our democratic institutions and processes.

Secondly, we have had more than 30 years of democratic experience, and imposing overnight democracy in the form of holding general elections within a year after coups is a fundamental lesson that we must not repeat this time.

At least three years is time enough to rectify and put in place meaningful democratic processes.

Perhaps Fiji should begin writing on the sand while the governments of New Zealand, Australia and the US decide among themselves who is to throw the first stone.

I wish to end this reflection by repeating something that I had shared some time ago. To those of us who believe that our situation is essentially tragic simply because some supposedly foreign experts and western governments say so, the Fiji condition will show itself as a series of tragedies.

To those who believe that we can rewrite the script of our democratic history in order to ensure a genuine democratic future, history will reveal itself as a series of slow, faltering but compassionate steps to a more gracious nation. I call upon all people of goodwill to give and share with each other the resources that each one lacks.

I call upon all Catholics to strengthen your networks of helping the poor and the needy in your parishes and communities.

I request that we stand in solidarity with the call of the poor for us to work and move forward together by sharing what we have with each other and highlighting their call in our parishes and communities.

God bless.

Archbishop Petero Mataca is head of the Catholic Church in Fiji

The subject of Fiji's electoral system is in the lime-light, prompting an objective and informative opinion article by a local member of Citizens Constitutional Forum (CCF).

This is the excerpt.

Avoiding further disasters with a new electoral system

Father DAVID ARMS
Saturday, March 17, 2007

IN the much talked about need for a "roadmap" back to democracy, the endpoint seems to be the holding of elections under the requirements of the 1997 Constitution (namely the Alternative Vote, a certain ratio of Communal and Open seats, etc).

Elections completed, Fiji is "back to democracy" and all is well again with the outside world.

With the outside world, perhaps. But not within Fiji itself.

It is simplistic to equate democracy with elections. Deep consideration needs to be given to what sort of democracy we want after any elections. For true democracy, elections need to genuinely reflect the people's view. None of the three elections held so far under Fiji's current voting system have done this.

The people's views have been greatly distorted, resulting in insufficiently representative parliaments. The present electoral system is itself the cause of many of Fiji's democratic woes.

Electoral experts agree that the former First-Past-the-Post (FPP) system would not have served Fiji much better than the Alternative Vote (AV). They would also agree, on the whole, that what Fiji needs is a form of Proportional Representation (PR).

I do not intend to present again here the many unjust results brought about by the AV system, nor the various arguments for PR.

What I wish to emphasise is that the time to make the change to PR is now. To plan electoral reform now for application after the next elections is most unsatisfactory. Fiji needs a truly representative parliament if it is to establish a more viable democracy and extricate itself from the coup culture. This in turn requires an immediate change of electoral system to PR.

Only after holding elections under a suitable new system does Fiji reach "democracy".

An immediate objection that will be raised is that AV and certain other requirements are mandated in the 1997 Constitution, so to change the electoral system now means contravening that Constitution. But the question must be asked: do we want genuine democracy, or don't we?

It may well be true that by having a coup, Fiji has simply jumped out of the frying pan into the fire. But it is no solution to suggest that Fiji now jumps out of the fire, back into the frying pan! We need to jump clear of both to employ new, just arrangements. The unfair AV system and the bipolar ethnically-based political scenarios it generated are not something that Fiji wants to relive. The AV system has not just been controversial in the Fiji context; it has been disastrous.

In the 1999 election we had the great unfairness that, although the FLP-led coalition had only one and a third times the first preferences of the SVT-led coalition, the AV system gave them more than five times as many seats. Such a wildly unjust result set the stage for the coup of 2000.

While many court cases have (rightly) been brought against the culprits, not at all enough blame has been attached to the AV system itself, which without any shadow of doubt contributed in a major way to the coup and all that has happened since.

In the 2001 election the AV system, which according to the Reeves Commission was supposed to encourage moderation, managed to reduce the so-called 'moderates' to the barest handful. In fact it can be cogently argued that, as well as wiping out the middle and setting up two major ethnically-based parties at loggerheads, it even managed to hand victory to the wrong party! Certainly by Fiji's former FPP system or by a PR system, the FLP would have been the major party and would probably have been able to form the government. As it was, the manipulation of people's choices provided by the above-the-line voting in AV, worked against the FLP this time (whereas it had worked for them in 1999).

In the 2006 election we again had results that were most undesirable, and a complete contradiction of what the Reeves Commission had wanted the AV system to achieve. Instead of encouraging multi-ethnic parties and inter-ethnic cooperation, the AV system provided us with the situation where all ethnic Fijian Communal seats and all Open seats with a clear ethnic Fijian majority were won by one party (the SDL), all Indo-Fijian Communal seats and all Opens seats with a clear Indo-Fijian majority were won by another party (the FLP), all General seats bar one (that of Robin Irwin) were won by another party (the UPP), and the single Rotuman seat was won by a different party again (an Independent, in fact).

Apart from Robin Irwin's and the Rotuman seat, the only seats where there was any real contest were the few Open seats where the ethnic ratio between ethnic Fijians and Indo-Fijians was quite close. For by far the greater number of seats the outcome was predictable, and the exercise of voting for thousands of voters was a rather meaningless formality. That is hardly the way voting should be.

With this evidence from the three past elections confronting us, is it not madness to suggest we go back and have elections again under the AV system?

The voting system is supposed to provide us with a House of Representatives, yet it is clear that major segments of our society have not had fair representation at all. The most outrageous case is surely that of the NFP, who held almost a third of the Indo-Fijian vote in 1999, a quarter in 2001, a seventh in 2006, but received no representation in any of the three elections.

Even in 2006 when they did least well, they held over 49,000 first preferences. They nevertheless got no seats even though the UPP party, with well under 7,000 first preferences, picked up two!

Surely in a country that prides itself on its concern for all groups, this sort of nonsense cannot be allowed to continue not even once more.

A further reason for changing the electoral system immediately is that, if such reform were to be implemented only after the next general election held under AV, there would be a huge waste of resources, which Fiji cannot afford. Modifications would have to be made to the AV system, new constituency boundaries drawn up, and comprehensive voter education programs undertaken. Yet all this work would have to be repeated if a new electoral system were to be used later rather than immediately.

Sufficient time, of course, must be given to prepare for a new electoral system. But it should still be possible to have it in place by 2010. It did not take very long to get the AV system into place (proposed by the Reeves Commission in 1996, used in the elections of 1999).

What needs to happen is for the Interim Government to call together the various political groupings for a meeting to change the electoral system.

This time of uncertainty, when the political allegiances of the people are less predictable, is quite a good time to propose a change to PR. PR gives to each party the percentage of seats corresponding to its percentage of voter support.

When parties are unsure of their ground, that is the time when they are most likely to support PR, as they realise it is eminently fair, and will ensure that everybody, including themselves, gets fair representation. They prefer to get less than they might, rather than risk missing out altogether.

It is only when some parties become clearly the major power blocks that they may try to steer away from PR, realising that certain other voting systems (such as AV) will exaggerate their dominance, eviscerating rivals or eliminating them altogether.

If the political groupings can agree on a change to a better voting system, we are in a good position to move forward and adopt it immediately. If they cannot agree, then there would need to be analysis of the areas of disagreement and the reasons for it.

If the matters are minor (for example, the details of the PR system to be used) or if only one party disagrees or seems bent on being a 'spoiler', the Interim Government may nevertheless be able to proceed. If, however, the disagreements are more substantial, it would need to be more circumspect.

But what needs to be done, needs to be done! We are faced by a 'doctrine of necessity' type situation. A change of electoral system is urgently needed. If the constitutional path is followed, the delay in making the change is too long, plus the fact that those with the power to make the change may very well not do so (from self-interest).

One of the big problems in changing the electoral system in any democracy is that the people empowered to change it are the very people who have just been elected by it. They usually have a vested interest in leaving the electoral system much as it is. It is important, therefore, to change the electoral system while Fiji is in the process of re-setting its course.

Undoubtedly, the coup of 2006 and its aftermath are highly controversial. The legalities (and clear illegalities) of a lot of what has taken place will be long discussed, analysed, and litigated.

But life must go on. We must deal with Fiji as it is, not as we might like it to be. If a referendum was held on some matter of national importance, would it be regarded as invalid merely because it took place during the reign of an illegal regime? Surely not. Provided it was conducted fairly, such a referendum would be accepted as a valid expression of the people's will. I am not, however, suggesting a referendum regarding the electoral system. The issues are too detailed and unfamiliar to the public to do that at this stage. If, however, a good cross-section of political interests could agree on changing the electoral system to one clearly more appropriate, why should this be treated much differently to a referendum? Surely in the crisis situation Fiji finds itself in, a certain flexibility is required.

There may not be much opposition to such a change even from outside countries. Foreigners with any understanding of Fiji at all, know that our AV voting system has not been successful. The European Union Electoral Observation Mission forthrightly questioned whether AV was suitable for Fiji. Off the record, a number of them spoke even more strongly, and recommended a PR system. Fiji has been criticised for some time over its high proportion of Communal seats, with recommendations that they be reduced over time to be ultimately done away with.

If, then, there is agreement that PR is fairer and more suitable to Fiji; and if Communal seats are done away with (the interests of ethnic communities being well enough protected by PR itself), opponents will look rather silly if they continue to claim that AV must be used because it is in the Constitution.

The Constitution was made for Fiji, not Fiji for the Constitution.

Although Fiji is still some time away from the elections proposed for 2010, suggestions, discussions and decisions towards adopting a form of PR need to be made, so that the necessary ground work for a change to PR (the particular form of PR, different electoral boundaries, training of electoral officials, voter education, etc.) can be completed by the 2010 deadline. The time to start work on this is now.

Father David Arms is a member of the Citizens Constitutional Forum. The opinions expressed here, however, are his own and not those of the CCF.

Club Em Designs