Credit to the Stuck in Fiji Mud blog for this piece.
Asia-Pacific Network: 24 July 2000
FIJI: THE FAILURE OF LIBERAL DEMOCRACY?
A
response to Dr Robert Wolfgramm of Monash University published in
Fiji's Daily Post on July 15. This article was published in the Daily
Post on July 27.
By JONE DAKUVULA in Suva
Dakuvula defends 1997 constitution: Who were the rapists of democracy?.
DR
ROBERT WOLFGRAMM, of Monash University, published a long article (Daily
Post, July 15, 2000) under the title "Why Democracy Has Failed" amongst
Fijians. He did not define his subject, "Democracy", and particularly
what it means in an ethnically divided country such as Fiji. Democracy
as I understand it in a limited sense means elections, civil liberties
and the right to organise.
It
could have a more radical meaning but that is the fundamental challenge
facing all people of the world including indigenous Fijians in the 21st
Century. Wolfgramm asserts that indigenous Fijians have never been
asked whether they want constitutional democracy and its values. He
believes Fijians still prefer their vanua and to be ruled by their
Chiefs. This is like saying indigenous Fijians have not been asked
whether they should have the Methodist Church, Capitalism, the modern
state, public roads, Fiji Bitter, or academics analysing them for that
matter.
Dr Wolfgramm should read Dr Esther Williams' and
Kaushik Saskena's (of U.S.P) book, "Electoral Behaviour and Opinion in
Fiji". This comprehensive study showed that 44% of the voters said the
Chiefs had no influence over their votes in the 1999 General Election.
Only 9% said the Chiefs did influence their votes. 36% (mostly
Indo-Fijians) did not answer the question.
Contrary to what he
asserts, a form of liberal Parliamentary system of Government based on
regular elections and written Constitutions (albeit four so far) had
operated quite successfully in Fiji for close to forty years since
before the close of the colonial era. For most of that period,
indigenous Fijian leaders held political power in the modern state, only
briefly interrupted by about 13 months of two Fiji Labour Party
Governments. Dr Wolfgramm should have asked the more specific mundane
questions, such as for example: Why were there military-inspired Coups
that overthrew these elected Labour-led Governments? And the answers are
fairly pedestrian.
In May 1987 and May 2000, characters such as
Sitiveni Rabuka, Apisai Tora, Ratu Inoke Kubuabola and George Speight
and their followers did not like the result of the Election and got
supporters in the Fiji Military Forces to help over throw the newly
elected Labour Government. And did they consult the Vanua, Fijian Chiefs
or for that matter the Fijian people before they organised the Coups?
But rallying some of them after the act was done was convenient and easy
because many indigenous Fijians in the vanuas believe that the modern
state also belongs to the Fijians, or to the "Vanua," and not to
"others".
It is unclear whether Dr Wolfgramm is in favour of
election as mechanism for changing government and holding our political
leaders accountable. I might be wrong, but he seems to favour the old
Colonial System of the Council of Chiefs nominating our Fijian Members
of Parliament. He needs to tell that to Speight and his "wannabee
Ministers" who prefer to dictate to the Chiefs who they should accept.
But
if he still believes in General Election then, the more relevant
question is, what type of electoral arrangement and Parliamentary system
of Government is more likely to produce results that might avoid
characters like Tora or Kubuabola, resorting to other methods that
overturn the result! Notwithstanding my reservations about the
Alternative Vote Electoral System, I thought the device of requiring the
leader of the major party after an Election to invite the parties with
more than eight seats into Cabinet is a pragmatic solution to the
problems of governance here.
It ensures that all political
communities are likely to be represented in a Coalition government. It
was not fool proof solution especially with the S.V.T not included, it
was free to arouse the Fijians. Any system can be wrecked by fanatics,
as we have learnt to our cost.
The 1997 Constitution
Contrary
to Dr Wolfgramm's belief, the 1997 Constitution was not the work of
what he calls "Constitutional Romantics". The Members of the Reeves
Commission were very experienced hard-headed "Constitutional realists".
Over a period of 18 months, they received thousands of submissions from
individuals, community groups, religious groups, organisations and
political parties. They also had the benefit of advice from local and
overseas scholars and experts on specific subjects of relevance and from
all these, the Commissioners produced their Report with 694
recommendations for changes to our system of Constitutional Government.
Wolfgramm judged the Reeves Report thus:
Realists
argue that democracy cannot force itself, it cannot be imposed against
the consent of the affected. To do so would amount to constitutional
rape.
He makes this assertion even though the
Commission had undertaken the widest and most intensive public
consultation ever since independence. Thereafter, the Report was
discussed over a period of about six months by the Joint Parliamentary
Select Committee on the Constitution and, most of its recommendations
were adopted with some modifications. A Fijian version of the Report was
unanimously endorsed by the Bose Levu Vakaturaga.
In both Houses
of Parliament, the Constitution was also passed unanimously in June
1997. If that process is what Dr Wolfgramm calls a "constitutional rape"
then we must wonder about his credentials as a student of Fiji's
political history.
However, the problem of Dr Wolfgramm is not
his scholarship but rather his political beliefs. He seems to support
the George Speight-led Coup, whose moment of "Constitutional revolution"
was inscribed in Clause B(b) of the Muanikau Accord thus:
The
1997 Constitution which they believe are repugnant to the preservation
and protection of the rights and interests of indigenous Fijians in
Fiji.
Who were the actual rapists of democracy?
It
has been argued by some of Speight's supporters that the majority of
Provincial Councils had rejected the Reeves Report, and that this was
evidence that the majority of indigenous Fijians had repudiated the 1997
Constitution. And that Prime Minister Rabuka's Government had unwisely
implemented the Reeves Report against the opposition of a majority of
Fijians.
There is really no firm basis for this belief. Dr
Williams' study that I have referred to above revealed 39% of the voters
in 1999 thought the new Constitution was a good one, 24% said it was
not a good one and 37% either did not know or had no opinion.
At
the end of July 1996, Commissioner Tomasi Vakatora was asked by the
Prime Minister to explain their Report to the Provincial Councils. He
started with the Lomaiviti and the Nadroga/Navosa Provincial Councils.
Both Councils supported the Reeves Report.
At that stage however,
opponents of the Reeves Commission in the S.V.T. intervened at the
Prime Minister's Office and directed that Tomasi Vakatora should stop
his visits to the Provincial Councils because they argued it was not his
responsibility to explain the Report to the rest of the Councils.
This
was to be left to the Politicians. It was these Politicians, Jim Ah
Koy, Ratu Inoke Kubuabola, Koresi Matatolu, Berenado Vunibobo and
others, who then successfully campaigned in the other Provincial
Councils for the rejection of the Reeves Report, in the expectation that
this would put a stop to any further progress at the upper levels.
These opponents of the Reeves Commission even succeeded at the S.V.T.
Caucus in persuading Prime Minister Rabuka that they be free to vote
according to their conscience in Parliament. They were permitted to do
so. They did not vote against the Constitution Amendment Bill.
Post 1999 General Elections
However,
when the S.V.T. was defeated in the 1999 General Election, they then
agreed with members of the Nationalist Vanua Takalavo Party (with Rabuka
sidelined to the Great Council of Chiefs Chairmanship), to campaign for
the removal of the Chaudhry led-Government. They used the earlier
rejection of the Provincial Councils as justification for the removal of
the 1997 Constitution. Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama and his men from
Queen Elizabeth Barracks agreed. They compelled the President Ratu Sir
Kamisese Mara (illegally and against his will) to step down so they
could introduce an "Abrogation of the Constitution Decree". Dr Wolfgramm
argues later in his article and I quote:
Those
who have had democracy imposed against their wishes will soon want to
repudiate it. They will, having had bitter experience of it, become
understandably suspicious of its purveyors.
This
statement again presumes that there was was widespread repudiation of
Constitutional democracy by indigenous Fijians two years later, in 1999.
In the last election, many Fijians were disappointed especially with
the unexpected result for the S.V.T. under the new Electoral System. But
again it cannot be claimed that a majority of Fijians had rejected
democracy either in May 1999 or in May 2000. In the May 1999 Election,
the S.V.T. got only 34.4% of the Fijian votes. The Fijian parties who
joined the Government had 61.3% of the total Fijian votes.
It was
clear that there had been a massive rejection of the S.V.T in the last
Election by the indigenous Fijians who voted for other parties. In the
1992 and 1994 Elections, the S.V.T. had received about 66% of the Fijian
votes. The marches in May 2000 leading up to Speight's coup numbered at
most 10,000. They were the consequence of a relentless propaganda
campaign, for about one year by the S.V.T. and the N.V.T.L.P, based on
misinformation and sometimes out right lies about the Governments
Policies. The indigenous Fijians were aroused to a level of suspicion
and hatred of Mahendra Chaudhry and Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, and even
Sitiveni Rabuka, as evident in the distorted and false pamphlets written
by the S.V.T. and Speight's supporters. These were distributed widely
all over the country before and after the coup.
Fijian Chiefs
Wolfgramm
claimed that the coup of Speight demonstrated that Fijians were as
dedicated as ever to their Chiefs. What in fact the Coup showed was the
ruthlessness of some ambitious Fijians who are not chiefs, but who
merely wanted to use the Chiefs to get into positions of political
power. At the last B.L.V. meeting, George Speight's agents strongly
pushed for the B.L.V's final endorsement of all that Speight's group
wanted. They were unsuccessful because of the resistance of some Chiefs,
who demanded the release of all the hostages first before they could
proceed to decide on the Presidency and Vice President.
It may be
bad news to Dr Wolfgramm that the last Council of Chiefs Meeting had
not changed it's earlier resolutions on how the current crisis should be
resolved. The May 25th resolution had supported the 1997 Constitution
as the appropriate framework for resolving the crisis. A leading Chief
who had attended the last meeting told me that most of the Members of
the B.L.V. had not accepted the Military's purported abrogation of the
1997 Constitution. Their understanding is that they had merely supported
the review of the 1997 Constitution and with possible changes to it if
George Speight's grievances, upon examination, are found to be
legitimate and amenable to a "Constitutional Solution."
Dr
Wolfgramm also seems to be sceptical about the relevance of modern
principles of good governance to Fijian institutions such as the
Provinces, the Vanua, the Chiefly system and the Native Land Trust
Board. I believe that the endurance of the Fijian Vanuas and the system
of Chiefly leadership can only be strengthened through the development
of a culture of respect for the rule of law and adoption of modern
principles of leadership and accountability within the indigenous Fijian
social world.
We have to reinvent our traditions. I do not agree
with Wolfgramm's thesis that we indigenous Fijians have to choose
between liberal democracy and chiefly rule. He has utterly failed in his
article to make a credible case that the values and institutions of a
liberal constitutional democracy are hostile to or destructive of
indigenous Fijian Vanua values. Indeed I believe the continuation of
Liberal Democracy and its values is vital for the survival of the
indigenous Fijian identity and the Vanua. In his ancestral homeland,
Tonga, there is a movement gathering strength for a Tongan version of
liberal democracy. In time it will succeed in bringing about popular
changes that will give a new lease of life to the Tongan Monarchy. I
doubt that even George Speight's supporters will agree with Dr
Wolfgramm's argument that indigenous Fijians prefer Chiefly rule to
liberal democracy, even though they seem to want to take us to a type of
country where competing Vanua and Provincial Warlords decide who will
be in power.
Wolfgramm's argument that Fijians prefer autocratic
Chiefly rule to democracy therefore has no substance. What does
Wolfgramm then make of Speight's supporters' success in rejecting the
Bose Levu resolutions of May 25th? Or their persuasion of the F.M.F to
force the resignation of Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara from the Presidency?
Their threats against Ratu Josefa Iloilo? Or their attempt at the last
meeting of the B.L.V. to denigrate and diminish the status and influence
of the members? Where is the traditional principle of respect and
reciprocation that Wolfgramm harps so much about in these action.
Constitutional Change
All
that Dr Wolfgramm is doing in his pontifications in the Daily Post is
pandering to Fijian nationalist prejudices with his simplistic labelling
of people as "Constitutional Romantics." It is he who fits this label,
not the U.S.P academics that he wants to denigrate. We are now having to
learn the hard way that democratic principles such as equality before
the law, equal political rights, indigenous group rights and general
human rights are important not just to us but also other nations with
whom we have relations in an increasingly inter-dependent global
economy. Fijian indigenous rights in particular must be protected in
accordance with principles that are universally accepted.
The
1997 Constitution had achieved that, and recognised the Paramountcy of
Fijian interests in the COMPACT Chapter as a guiding principle for
resolving political conflicts. That is far as we can go, short of
introducing political apartheid. We cannot have one special rule for
indigenous supremacy for us Fijians and demand that the world either
accept or "butt off". Should Speight and his gang win total political
power, they will in due course find that their utopian dream of a modern
and dynamic Fiji, based on a vague notion of indigenous supremacy will
be meaningless with a run down economy, widespread unemployment and
poverty, and qualified people deserting for other countries. A
Constitution that satisfies the prejudices (or the "souls" as Wolfgramm
puts it of the minority extremist nationalists who support George
Speight) will then not be worth the paper it is written on. For how can
we expect people of George Speight's ilk to respect a new Constitution
that they want to dictate to us when they will not abide an imperfect
one that had been democratically implemented? If we are to change the
1997 Constitution, let us do it the right way, under the procedures of
that Constitution.
The international community is telling us that
we risk international isolation and severe decline in our standards of
living, if we do not restore fundamental democratic and human rights
values in our system of national government and dare I say, in the
culture of the Vanuas. Having a totally Fijian Parliament, such as
Speight's group are demanding, and depriving our fellow Indo-Fijian
citizens of their political rights is not going to do us indigenous
Fijians any good. It will reduce us to the status of a Pariah State in
the international community. In such a situation, Speight's Fijian
supporters will inevitably turn against him and his office seeking
colleagues. Meanwhile, Dr Wolfgramm will remain a long distance student
of Fijian political changes, enjoying the comforts and security of
University in a liberal democratic country, whose democratic values he
believes we indigenous Fijians are not good enough to have and to
treasure.
Jone Dakuvula is a political commentator and researcher with the Fiji Citizens' Constitutional Forum.
Copyright © 2000
