International University Bremen School of Humanities and Social Sciences

020008 USC Mathematics & Democracy, Fall Semester 2005 Instructor: Prof. Dr. Matthijs Bogaards & Prof. Dr. Dierk Schleicher

Project II: Electoral Engineering for the Sovereign Democratic Republic of

- Term Paper -

Anna Kristina Bautista (EECS), Matthias Bröcheler (Mathematics), Ivelina Grozeva (IPH), Maximilian Held (ISS), Nora Lücke (GeoAstro), Adina Luican (Physics)

Word count: 7973 Bremen, 18/12/2005 Introduction

Nowadays, hardly any political leader questions that democracy is the ultimate way to organize human societies; it has become the only legitimate game in town. However accounts of newly established democracies in the last half-century are often mixed; many of them are plagued by instability and ineffectiveness. Especially in places, where the path to modernity was not yet completed, the rule by the people had a hard time being established and sustained. Democratic development seems to be curiously intertwined with overall societal development, ranging from mass beliefs of citizens to GDP per capita. In helping societies on their way to democracy, institutional design has played a key role. The electoral system is one such institution that young democracies have to devise. It governs the translation of political preferences of voters in power relations in the legislatures – the very process that democracy is all about. Differences in this mechanism have a great deal of influence on political systems in general, and have been assigned chief importance for the prospects of young democracies.

The Democratic Republic of the Fijian Islands is such a young democracy: harshly divided finding its way to modernity, frequently shaken by political unrest and characterized by an unstable democratic polity. The electoral system has undergone repeated revisions to alleviate existing societal problems – with mixed results. In the following, we will present the case of Fiji, analyze its electoral system, discuss democratic prospects of divided societies and ultimately devise and suggest our own electoral system for the islands in the Pacific Ocean.

The Republic of Fiji

The Republic of Fiji Islands is a group of 800 islands in the South Pacific with an indigenous population of mixed Polynesian and Melanesian origin. In 1874, the British Empire imposed colonial rule on Fiji until it gained independence in 1970 and democratic governance was instituted. Between 1879 and 1916 the British brought in more than 60,000 indentured Indian labourers to work on the lucrative sugar plantations. From then on the number of Indo- grew steadily and eventually the population became roughly half native Fijian and half Indo-Fijian, with a small minority of European and Chinese settlers.

2 However, there has been very limited integration of the Indo-Fijians into the native Fijian society a fact that stems from their apparent cultural and religious differences since Indo-Fijians are mostly Hindu and the native Fijians are predominantly Christian. The current population estimate is roughly 900,000 inhabitants. With a Gross Domestic Product of $ 5,900 per capita Fiji has one of the wealthiest and most developed economies in the Pacific region (CIA World Factbook 2005: Fiji).

The ’s Electoral System

Legislative Council prior to 1966 During colonial rule, a Legislative Council with mostly advisory powers was created. Initially all members of the Legislative Council were appointed by the colonial governor. In 1904 European males were allowed to vote for seven seats while two seats were allocated to two native Fijian chiefs chosen by the colonial governor from nominees appointed by the , a group of native Fijian tribal chiefs. In 1929 wealthy Indian males were able to vote for one representative to the Legislative Council.

Legislative Council Election of 1966 The first election with universal suffrage was held in 1966. However ethnic tensions prevented elections from a common voters’ roll. Therefore communal and national constituencies were established, with the national constituencies being a compromise between strictly ethnic and interracial voting. The Fijian Parliament, called the Legislative Council, was comprised of 36 representatives. Out of those, 25 were elected in communal constituencies, 9 in national constituencies and two nominated by the Great Council of Chiefs. Each constituency had a magnitude of one and its representative was determined by the first-past-the-post (FPTP) system.

Communal Constituencies The country was divided into Communal Constituencies comprised of members from only one particular ethnic group. Voters are required to register as members of their respective ethnic affiliation. In the 1966 election, out of the 25 Communal Constituencies nine were designated for native Fijians, nine for Indo-Fijians and seven for (minority groups).

3 National Constituencies The nine seats elected from National Constituencies were allocated by ethnicity with three seats each for native Fijians, Indo-Fijians and minorities. However, these seats were filled by universal suffrage. Each voter had a total of four votes: one for her or his communal constituency and three for each of the ethnic groups in their respective National Constituencies. This required politicians to seek for voter support beyond their own ethnic group without direct interethnic competition.

House of Representatives Elections from 1972 to 1987 After gaining independence in 1970, the only directly elected body of the newly established government was the House of Representatives, with the Senate being appointed by higher authorities. From 1972 to 1987 the House of Representatives had 52 members. 22 seats were allocated to native Fijians (12 from communal and 10 from national constituencies), 22 seats to Indo-Fijians (12 from communal and 10 from national constituencies) and 8 seats to general electors (three from communal and five from national constituencies). During this period, the first-past-the-post-system was used and the ethnic allocation of seats was fixed with equal representation for native and Indo-Fijians.

Military Coup of 1987 and Elections in 1992 and 1994 In 1987, the ruling native Fijian was defeated by the Indo-Fijian dominated National . The election outcome resulted in Indo-Fijians dominating cabinet and other branches of government. This development caused political unrest among the native Fijians, leading to two military coups that forced the ouster of the current government and brought about declaration of Fiji as a republic. The native Fijian leaders of the coup instituted a new constitution that increased the number of Representatives from 52 to 70, all of which were elected from communal constituencies with an inbuilt majority for native Fijians, who were allocated 37 seats, against the 27 seats for Indo-Fijians and one to Rotuman Islanders and five to general electors, meaning other minority groups. Elections were held in 1992 and 1994 employing the first-past-the-post system in multi-member constituencies.

4 The Current Situation

Political power in the Sovereign Republic of Fiji Islands is separated among legislative and executive bodies. The President is appointed by the Great Council of Chiefs for a term of five years and fulfills mainly ceremonial functions. The legislative is bicameral: House of Representatives and the Senate. All 32 members of the latter are appointed. The upper chamber is less powerful than the House of Representatives, which is directly elected. The new constitution introduced by the military government after the coups in 1987 created a significant political advantage for the indigenous Fijians. Consequently, many Indo- Fijian decided to leave the country in response to the political discrimination, causing a shortage in the labor force. Additionally, the political actions and constitutional changes received substantial international criticism.

Facing economic contraction and international pressure, the government finally decided to institute a Constitutional Review Commission (CRC) in 1995. The Commission decided to abandon the Westminister style electoral setup inherited from the colonial rulers in favor of a voting system that would allow “inter-communal interaction” (Kumar & Prasad 2004: 313). Inspired by the positive experience of its neighboring countries Australia and Papua New Guinea as well as the good reputation, the Constitutional Review Commission concluded to introduce the alternative vote (AV), a type of preferential voting system. The AV system was believed to be the best match for Fiji, due to its inbuilt encouragement of collaborative politics between parties (Kumar & Prasad 2004). Furthermore, the size of the House of Representative was increased by one to 71. The constituency allocation was greatly modified to reduce the inherent bias: 46 seats are now filled from communal constituencies, out of which 23 are reserved for indigenous Fijians, 19 for Indo- Fijians, three for general electors and one for the Rotuman island. The remaining 25 seats represent open constituencies. Unlike communal constituencies, representatives from open constituencies are elected by universal suffrage and unlike national constituencies, politicians from all ethnic groups may compete for the seat. Open constituencies thus innovate a new dimension of political competition in Fiji and in fact the elections of 1999 and 2001 have suggested that most political competition takes place in these districts. The ratio of communal to open constituencies has caused severe controversies in Fiji; designers of the current electoral system proposed to reverse the ratio, while ethno-nationalists demand to abolish open constituencies altogether.

5 Constituency boundaries are drawn in such a way, that each seat is roughly represents the same number of voters for each district category. Additionally, an equal distribution of ethnicities is to be ensured within each open constituency. The ethnic-fijian districts are geographically contingent, whereas the indo-fijian population votes in “artificial” non-geographic districts. All these amendments to the constitution were ratified in 1997.

The first elections held under the new constitution in 1999 caused a radical change in the political landscape. The anticipated coalition between the two largest parties, the reigning Fijian Political Party and National Federation Party, lost 45 seats in Parliament and was reduced to insignificance, despite a significant vote share. Unexpectedly, the previously unimportant Indo- Fijian Labour Party secured a majority of seats in Parliament, dominating the political sphere. The election results were widely considered to be highly disproportional. Furthermore, many indigenous Fijians felt politically marginalized which once again gave rise to a coup d’etat in 2000. After a period of political unrest and military rule, the country finally returned to the polls in 2001 under the same electoral system. This time the United Fiji Party and Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase emerged victorious in a coalition with the Conservative Alliance. Both parties were founded after the coup and catered to the sentiments of the indigenous Fijian population. Even though no further major incidents have shaken Fijian politics, the current situation is far from being considered stable.

Fiji – A Split Society

Fiji is often portrayed as a society, harshly split along ethnic lines, being divided in roughly half between the indigenous population (ethnic Fijians) and a group of Indian immigrants (Indo- Fijians) that moved to the Island in the late 19th century. There are also marginally small groups of Europeans, other Asians and native Rotuman tribesmen.

The sociological set-up of Fijian societies indeed provides very good “material” for ethnic framing, to put it in Brubaker’s words (2002: 173). Both the Indo-Fijians and the ethnic Fijian population have their own myths of “common descent, either real or putative” (van den Berghe 1981: 16)1. In fact, considering the miniscule magnitude of the two groups (around 350,000) and the shared historical experience of an inter-ethnic struggle, one may argue that Fijian society is

1 It shall be noted that the notion of common descent – at least on the side of the Indo-Fijian population – is not understood putatively, but rather as an actual relatedness to a small immigrant group that came to Fiji at the end of the 19th century as indentured laborers for the sugar industry (Reilly 2002: 163).

6 one of the rare case, in which ethnicity can easily be understood following a merely socio- biological paradigm, in which “ethnic and racial sentiments are extensions of kinship sentiments” and “are thus extended forms of nepotism, the propensity to favor kin over nonkin” (16). The “petty particularisms” of Fijian society may be expressions of a primordial Weberian “Gemeinschaft” (1946) understanding of tribal2 affiliation to a “small-scale, intimate, face-to-face group of a few hundred people or the prototypical ethny” (van den Berghe 1981: 16). The fact that mating is organized according to a strict regime of preferential endogamy in Fiji further supports this argument (Wikipedia 2005: Fiji).

This ethnic division is also reflected in political power relations. Whenever only representatives of one “ethnic group” are in power, the other half of Fijian society feels politically marginalized. In recent history this sentiment precipitated the 2000 Coup d’état led by endogenous George Speight, who claimed the ethnic Fijians were suppressed by the Indo-Fijian government – a situation that in the past has always led to political violence (Fraenkel 2003: 1). Also political orientations are largely reflections of an ethnicized view of society: there are no cross-cutting ideological cleavages. Fault lines in political controversies, such as the distribution of land ownership, typically run along ethnic lines (2003).

Description of the Electoral System

To determine the election winner in each constituency Fiji employs the alternative vote (AV), also know as instant run-off voting. Under AV each voter preference ranks the competing candidates. Based on these preference profiles the lowest polling candidate is eliminated and her or his votes are transferred to lower ranking preferences. This process is iterated until one candidate emerges victorious by reaching a majority (>50%) of votes. Fiji’s Electoral System includes some substantial deviations from the classic AV. The electoral regime has two tiers, communal and open constituencies. The 46 communal constituencies are designed – in fact sophisticatedly gerrymandered – to translate the ethnic divide, ensuring an overwhelming majority of one ethnic group in each of the districts (Bogaards 2004). Voting in the 25 open constituencies by contrast does not allow for translation of the ethnic divide, but, by the vote-pooling logic of AV encourages moderate, inter-ethnic candidates to win the election by lower preferences.

2 The primordially framed nature of Fijian society and politics is also constitutionally entrenched in explicitly pre- modern institutions as the Great Council of Chiefs, which is represented in the second chamber to parliament.

7 The ballot is similarly split in two parts: an ordinal part, allowing for classic AV-style preference ranking and an optional ‘above the line voting’ part, in which voters indicate only their first preference, similarly to an SMP ballot3. In support of Fraenkel’s criticism that the Fijian ballot is hard to understand for citizens, it was found that over 90 per cent of the voters use the simpler, ‘above the line’-option (2003: 2). Lower preferences in this part are determined by ex- ante party agreements, so called vote transfer tickets. The transferring is implemented by the Elections’ Office according to lists of preferences previously (at least seven days before the election) submitted by the parties (2003: 2).

Analysis of the Electoral System

The above mentioned deviations from the classic AV have important implications for its efficiency, which are discussed in the following.

Most obviously, the gerrymandered communal districts undermine the vote-pooling functionality of AV. The ethnically homogenous districts and the possibility for ‘above the line voting’ basically reduces seat allocation to a simple plurality logic in 46 of the 72 districts. Competition on the communal level is mainly intra-ethnic. Cross-ethnic competition for center votes is encouraged only on the national level. The prospects for center parties – of which improving is a central goal of the AV according to many proponents of the system (Horowitz: 2004) – are hence enhanced only in a minority of districts.

The practice of transferring ‘above the line’ votes according to party tickets introduces even more problems. From a normative point of view, these vote transfers restrict the freedom of the voter to express her or his preferences, as parties get to decide about lower preference completely independent of the will of the voter – who in most cases does not understand this practice and is not informed about the ex-ante agreements of parties This shortcoming was recently also acknowledged by Vice President , who conceded on 3 November 2005, that “in hindsight, it would perhaps have been preferable to leave the voter to make up his mind” (Wikipedia 2005: Fijian Electoral System: 1). Not only can parties ‘fix’ election results to a large degree in advance by making electoral pacts, but in most cases the pre-determined transfers will

3 A specimen of the ballot can be found in the appendix.

8 violate actual (lower) preferences profiles of voters4 (Fraenkel 2003: 2). Fijian AV can hence hardly be praised for the legitimacy of its system, an advantage usually brought forward by proponents of the system, such as Horowitz (2004) and Farrel (2001). Not entering into vote transfer pacts with other parties is harshly punished by the electoral system, as was the case with the National Federation Party which failed to secure a preference deal and was in neither of the two recent elections and therefore excluded from parliament. The party had campaigned for moderation, but had failed to join transfer agreements. Generally, success on the national level depends more so on preference deals, closed with other parties, than on promoting moderate policies publicly, as the classic AV argument suggests (Horowitz: 2004).

The deviations can also be criticized on functional grounds. Fraenkel concludes convincingly that the current electoral system in Fiji is in fact a dysfunctional AV: more conciliatory parties can be penalized in both national and communal districts (2003).

To complete our analysis, the following provides an assessment of how the Fijian AV fares on other standard criteria for electoral systems and the AV in particular (Farrel 2001). The Fijian AV system has delivered harshly disproportional results, with seat shares differing from actual voting preferences up to 19.25% in 1999 (Gallagher as cited in Fraenkel 2003). Comparable figures are much lower for Germany (2.52% under a largely PR system) or even under the SMP of the United Kingdom (10.33%) in 1999 respectively (Lijphart 1999: 162)5. The Fijian system also fares pretty badly on the criterion of governability – which is typically juxtaposed to the above mentioned proportionality in the discussion about merits of different electoral systems. Recent Fijian history has seen two coup d’états because of a marginalized opposition – the most apparent failure of governability. Moreover, coalition governments have often been destabilized by intra-party power struggles and opposition of “backbenchers” and “grass roots supporters” of the respective parties (Fraenkel 2003: 2).

4 A visualization of this shortcoming of the above-the-line-voting is included in the appendix. 5 The Gallagher index of disproportionality decreased to 15.74 in the 2001 election. Details on the calculation of the index can be found in the appendix.

9 Implications of the Electoral Regime on the Party System and Coalition Building

Fiji’s polity is dominated by what Sartori has described as an unstructured party system (2004). The party landscape cannot – as in most modern states – be portrayed in terms of continua between ideological poles. Especially the elections in the communal districts – which are characterized by intra-ethnic competition and constituency linkage – are plagued by localism and clientelism of individual, hardly integrated candidates. Almost by its very design, the electoral system in its communal tier does very little to bring about a landscape of political orientations of non-ethnic cross-cutting cleavages. More the opposite, it sustains the current premodern, overly communal political orientation that are by definition at odds with the concept of the modern state, as Gellner has argued (1964, 1983). This lack of structure is also reflected in very high fluctuation of party results: the Bröcheler Fluctuation Index between the 1999 and 2001 was 52.4. A comparable figure for two consecutive elections in Germany (2002 and 2005) is 11.26,7.

The relationship between party fluctuation and the electoral system is twofold: on the one hand, changing preference deals greatly influences election outcomes as has been argued in the above. On the other hand, the non-existence of non-ethnic political orientations in the party landscapes introduces a great deal of dynamics in the negotiations of these preference deals – to the degree that the transferring of votes can be described as somewhat arbitrary with little regard to political agendas. This dynamic, in turn, is reinforced by the ‘above-the-line-voting’ system by allowing parties to close transfer deals with no regard to preferences of voters or political agendas. Gaining high seat shares is the only objective of these negotiations. The vote distributions are not determined by actual political alliances, let alone genuine, substantively coherent coalition- building ambitions, but are the result of a merely instrumentalist understanding of the workings of the AV.

Similarly, actual coalitions – what Horowitz has euphemistically described as “alliances of convenience” (2004: 513) – were often random joint ventures, held together not by the belief in a

6 The Bröcheler fluctuation index is calculated as square root of the sum of squared differences of seat shares between the two elections. The respective table is included in the appendix. 7 It should be noted that the fluctuation index in Germany is already unusually high, due to the emergence of a new party in the 2005 election, the “PDS / Die Linke” that has previously not been in parliament. The index for the Fijian elections by comparison seems all the higher.

10 common political project as “connected party coalitions”, but only by the will to have power (Fraenkel & Grofman 2004)8.

It can be concluded that with regards to the party system and coalition-building, the Fijian type AV works highly dysfunctional. It has so far hardly “made moderation rewarding”, what proponents such as Horowitz have envisaged (as cited in Fraenkel 2003: 3). Rather than promoting moderate center parties and coalitions, its influence can be described as pseudo- centripetal only.

Aims for Electoral Engineering in Ethnically Divided Societies: The Case of Fiji

Democratic rule in divided societies is difficult to establish and even more so to sustain. When the public realm is dominated by putative zero-sum relationships, in which political claims or demands are always perceived to be or in fact are in favor of one group and at the expense of another group, democratic virtues such as cooperation, peaceful interaction and acceptance of the rule of law hardly materialize (Horowitz 2004). Parties usually exploit this situation by competing for the extreme vote, since cooperation and moderation is often framed as “selling out interests” of the respective group. In this way, parties actually reinforce the very antagonisms, they have claimed to be only responding to.

Ethnicity is often promoted and understood as a master status in an essentializing view, placing it beyond and above all other possible categories of difference (Brubaker 2002). Ethnicity always suggests putative or actual common descent. It is this pre-modern obsession with putative blood ties, which caters to the primordial instincts of the human condition - survival of oneself and one’s offspring -, that endows ethnically framed conflicts with their dramatic, dangerous and most importantly existential nature. Societies in which the major dividing line is understood to be an ethnic one, hence have the poorest prospects for effective and peaceful democracy. The ultimate device to decide democratically is the majority rule. This rule fails when no clear majority between two putatively uniform blocks can be found: a stalemate can occur. Democracy is seriously at risk, when all or most political decisions are faced with always the

8 The authors acknowledge that aside from the electoral system other institutional prescriptions also influence coalition-building in a negative way. For example, every party that has a minimum of eight seats in parliament is also granted a seat in cabinet – no matter what its political agenda is.

11 same, supposedly internally homogeneous 50-50 blocks – no issue linkages can be established and politics can get paralyzed in zero-sum games. Fijian society, many political actors claim, satisfy all of the above conditions to make liberal democracy the utmost unlikely type of rule to materialize: it is understood as ethnically divided, the two groups are of equal size and most political decisions revolve about the supposed ethnic divide9.

Scholars of various disciplines have suggested diverse responses to this problematique, many of which include suggestions for how representation is to be organized to overcome the above mentioned pre-modern obstacles on the way to democracy, an approach that has been coined electoral engineering. As Benjamin Reilly has summarized and contrasted different perspectives on electoral engineering (2002). One approach is closely related to the concept of consociational democracy, chiefly developed and praised by Arend Lijphart (1999). Consociational approaches “emphasize the need to develop mechanisms for elite-power sharing if democracy is to survive ethnic or other conflicts” (Reilly 2002: 157). Usually, proportional representation is suggested as the corresponding electoral system, allowing for a translation of the ethnic divide, to borrow Bogaard’s terms (2002). Proponents of this approach name the Netherlands, Belgium and Switzerland as countries in which consociationalism has helped to alleviate problems of ethnic division (Reilly 2002). A subtype of this approach suggests to “build restraining walls” between ethnic groups (Fraenkel & Grofman 2004: 488). Respective institutional manifestations include: ethnic federalism, homogeneously gerrymandered constituencies and communally based legal- or educational systems, all of which again aim at translating the ethnic divide. This approach, especially with PR or translation kind of electoral systems, has often been criticized to work centrifugally, ultimately resulting in a polarized or fragmentized party system. By contrast, the preferential or centripetal option, according to Reilly, suggests that “the best way to mitigate the destructive patterns of divided societies is not to encourage the formation of ethnic parties, thereby replicating existing ethnic division in the legislature, but rather to utilize electoral systems to encourage cooperation and accommodation among rival groups (…)” (Reilly 2002: 157). Electoral systems under this approach are designed to work centripetally. Centripetalism, according to Reilly, is characterized by the below three features: (1) existence of “electoral incentives” for cross-ethnic, moderate campaigning, (2) an “arena of bargaining”, in which deals for reciprocal electoral support and common political agendas are negotiated and (3) the

9 For instance, BBC news reported Caretaker Prime Minister Laisenia Quarase to have said that “Fiji was still not ready for Western-style democracy (…). So, all the time, you will have conflict between the two”. (2005).

12 emergence of “centrist, aggregative and multiethnic political parties or coalitions” which present “a complex and diverse range of policy options to the electorate” (2002: 159). Respective electoral systems include institutions encouraging vote pooling and thereby political inter-ethnic cooperation and bargaining, such as the AV and the STV do. Both are “aggregation” approaches (Bogaards 2002, Horowitz 2004). A fierce proponent of this approach, or, more specifically, of the AV, is Donald Horowitz (2004).

To our minds, the current Fijian electoral system combines “the worst of both worlds”. It includes institutions inspired by both theoretical perspectives. The communal tier of the AV with homogeneous districts clearly is a response to the public demand to ensure a translation of the ethnic divide (Bogaards 2002). However, the electoral engineers did not – and could not for obvious reasons – go the entire way to consociationalism: in a society with regionally dispersed ethnic communities, federalism or communal autonomy is not an option. The AV clearly was implemented in light of the preferential approach, hoping to jumpstart a centripetal development of the party system. The Fijian AV does however, as is argued in the above, deviate from the original logic to such a pronounced degree that it remained dysfunctional and pseudo-centripetal at best.

Aside from these country specific qualifications, Fiji is an instructive case to identify the general shortcomings of both approaches. When consociationalists refer to classic European consensus democracies, such as the Netherlands and Belgium to praise the virtues of translation for ethnically divided societies, they fail to take into account the overall development of society, a shortcoming that Reilly already hinted at, stating that for any prescription, the social context is important (2002). Western, highly modernized states by definition are ever more (functionally) differentiating and are hence characterized by cross-cutting, ideological cleavages and structured party systems, both of which, once in place, allow for fruitful political cooperation – for example through issue linkages – in consociational institutions. In societies that have not completed the path to modernity in which ethnicity is perceived as the only and ultimate dividing line - such as in Fiji -, this argument does not hold, as is discussed in the above. In those societies, consociational power-sharing is bound to fail, cross-ethnic alliances of parties will always be only randomly established for the sake of power. They will be truly non-political, lacking any orientation on a common political agenda. In a similar vein, the prescription for aggregation under the Fijian AV can be an inefficient medicine, as it does not ensure genuine coalition building around common political projects.

13 Horowitz makes exactly the same mistake as consociationalists do, when he refers to Australia to praise the centripetal power of the AV (2004: 512), not paying due regard to the drastically different stage of development that modern Australia has achieved.

Beyond the translation vs. aggregation scholarly controversy, there are scientists who generally discredit electoral engineering as a measure to alleviate problems in ethnically divided societies. Jon Fraenkel claims that electoral engineering “will not solve the deep-seated racial antagonisms in Fiji” (2003: 4). He suggests not to tamper with seat allocation mechanisms, and let a “fair” electoral system – arguably, he refers to proportionality – translate the ethnic divide, much in line with the consociational approach. Fraenkel argues, that any sanctioning or extremism or promotion of moderation would “only drive [ethnic sentiments] underground, and weaken[…] the political will to tackle underlying inflammatory issues” (2003: 4). This argument – we find – as many prescriptions for electoral engineering in the field, exemplary fails to keep “ethnicity” as an empirical phenomenon away from the analytical toolbox of social science, a claim that Rogers Brubaker has recently made (2002). As Brubaker has famously said ethnicity is “what we want to explain, not what we want to explain things with” (165). Constructivist that Brubaker is, he suggested to rethink ethnicity in subjective, “relational, processural, dynamic, eventful and disaggregated terms” (167) rather than mistaking the possible category for groupness “ethnicity” for an actual, “objective thing-in-the-world” social actor (169)10. While we – just as Brubaker - do not wish to discount the reality or significance of ethnic affiliations in Fiji, we assert that a constructivist understanding in this case may indeed greatly improve our social analysis and institutional prescriptions as it can correct for an otherwise “overethnicized view of the social world” (175)11. Fraenkel as many other social scientists in this field understand the ethnic divide as an objective reality, taking it for granted in the discussion of institutional prescriptions (2003). They fail to acknowledge that ethnic sentiments, following a constructivist argument, are as much the reason for political institutions such as electoral systems as they are their outcome. By contrast, we deem it important to be aware of the interests that ethnic entrepreneurs – or party elites - may

10 We are aware that in this contribution, we often posit ethnicity in terms, so that it could be misunderstood as an objective reality. Where this is the case, it is however only to improve the ease of reading. Our argument, in any case, is based on a strictly constructivist understanding of ethnicity. 11 It should be noted that deconstructing ethnicity, does, as both constructivist Brubaker (2002) and socio-biologist van den Berghe (1981) concede, not mean that it can be constructed out of nothing. It can “be manipulated, but not manufactured” (16), it depends on the materials present. With the case of Fiji, as we argue in the above, comparing the sociological set-up to the socio-biological paradigm, material for ethnic construction certainly is abundant.

14 have in “living off [ethnicity] as well as for [ethnicity]”, to borrow the classic distinction made by Max Weber (1964: 84). To the degree, that the Fijian AV has so far allegedly responded to an objectively existent ethnic divide, it has offered political incentives for parties to “play the ethnic card” and has hence reinforced the divide it was designed to alleviate (Reilly 2002: 156). We assert that consociationalist concepts such as inter-ethnic cooperation or the idea of inter-ethnic coalitions as suggested by proponents of allegedly centripetal institutions may bear problems of a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of ethnicity and a negligence of its dynamics. The two worlds of consociationalism and – albeit to a smaller degree – preferentialism are prone to reinforce ethnicity.

To our mind, ethnic divides are not to be accommodated, nor forced to integrate, but on much bolder note, ethnicity must be overcome as a dimension in the political realm altogether. Scholars following the centripetal approach have implicitly already adopted this claim, seeing integration “with the aim of minimizing the importance of ethnicity for political life and for social and economic opportunity” (Fraenkel & Grofman 2004: 488). Respective prescriptions have however often granted “ethnicity” institutional reinforcement, - be it through aggregation or translation – rather then abolishing any political incentives for actors to construct ethnic divisions. Our radical claim does of course open up the pandora’s box of controversies between relativistic and universalistic stances towards human development, a thorough discussion of which is beyond the scope of this contribution. We would however assert that, relativistic approaches, as they treat ethnicity as an objective reality, and regard any interference with existing constructs of ethnic divisions as cultural imperialism, make the same methodological mistake that we criticized in the above. In any case, we believe that our suggestion can lead to a more agnostic stance towards mass beliefs in pre-modern societies, - and certainly more so, than ethnicity- reinforcing understandings – so that it can hardly be critized for imposing anything on traditional or developing populations. We believe that both “interethnic accommodation”, a concept promoted by Horowitz, a fierce supporter of the Fijian AV, as well as trying to “pave the way to a new era of ‘multi-ethnic’ government” is bound to fail (as cited in Fraenkel 2003: 3). To overcome the ethnically framed divide, new non-ethnic political orientations have to emergence. Only then can genuinely “ideologically connected” political alliances – that may then very well be trans-ethnic – emerge, when they are rooted in common political agendas and not the result of an instrumentalist non-

15 political reaction to the logic of an electoral system (Axelrod: 1970). We also believe that the notion of center parties, that underlies the current AV, is the result of non-constructivist understanding. To overcome the ethnic divide it does not suffice to have a party that is neither Indo- nor ethnic-Fijian – rather, this would suggest the prolonged presence of the divide. What a sustainable Fijian democracy needs is non-ethnic, but differentiated political options, that do not need to be middle alternatives, as the term centrist suggests. In that, we recommend to add non-ethnic political alternatives as a fourth criterion to the prescription of centripetalism as described by Reilly (2002).

Strangely contrasting with the state of its political realm, the Fijian economy is actually not as underdeveloped. It is in fact reported to be “one of the most developed Pacific island economies” (CIA World Factbook 2005: Fiji). There have recently also been few, but remarkable incidents, where actors in the political realm have transcended over ethnicity. As such, the Fiji Labor Party has successfully promoted policies appealing “to working-class people regardless of race” in the City Council Election in July 1985 (Wikipedia 2005: Fijian Electoral System). All of this suggests that there are in fact already some typical modern political cleavages other than ethnic division in the minds of the electorate – only this development has been efficiently suppressed by the incentives that the electoral system has repeatedly offered for playing the ethnic card. We argue that the ethnic divide is not objectively or necessarily as pronounced as it seems now, but that this impression is caused by the political incentive structure favoring ethnicity. We will later in this paper suggest an electoral system that we deem capable of breaking this self-reinforcing inertia of pre-modernity in the Sovereign Democratic Republic of the Fiji Islands.

Recent history has of course also suggested, ethnically framed division of society to be so strongly embedded in political mass beliefs, that it may not be feasible to overcome it instantaneously: whenever ethnic representation was violated – especially the political power of ethnic-Fijians – political violence was the result. Hence, it will be necessary to design an electoral system that still allows for some ethnic representation, while at the same time promoting non- ethnic political alternatives. Our prescription for an electoral system, which we describe later in this paper, takes this constraint into account.

16 Our Prescription for Electoral Engineering: STV in heterogeneous 3-MDs

We are suggesting the single-transferable vote in ethnically heterogeneous three-member districts as an electoral system for the Democratic Republic of the Fiji Islands. We expect the system to manufacture not a center party – or more specifically center candidates – that do not compete on ethnically divisive issues, but also to create incentives for non-ethnic political differentiation. Under the STV, voters are asked to rank all candidates in the districts according to their preferences. There will be no possibility for ‘above-the-line-voting’. Districts will be designed heterogeneously with regards to ethnic affiliation so as to best represent the entire population in each of the constituencies. Constituencies will be drawn – or gerrymandered – as geographically contingent as possible12.

The logic of our system and its centripetal or actually “anti-ethnic” mechanism can easily be understood applying game theory. In the worst case, voters will prefer all candidates from the same ethnic group over all candidates from other ethnic groups or those with no promoted ethnic affiliation. Accordingly, the maximum payoff would be, if all three seats in a constituency are rewarded to candidates from this ethnic group. Since the exact opposite preference profile would hold true for the equally large other ethnic group, this is however very unlikely to happen. Because of the near tie ratio between the two ethnic groups, voters cannot even safely assume to gain a second seat for their ethny. Since preferences will – albeit to a smaller degree – also be determined by intra-ethnic competition and ex-ante agreements involving all voters of a constituency are hard to establish, it is likely that rankings will - despite the general tendency to favor one’s own ethnicity over all other candidates – differ. Hence, which ethny gets the “third” seat remains uncertain for voters until the night of the election13. The group gaining a second (= the “third”) seat gets the highest possible payoff, while the other political power of the other group is relatively marginalized (the worst possible payoff). Voters of both ethnic groups also have the possibility to award lower preferences to non-ethnic candidates. When voters of both ethnic group give lower (but not lowest) preference to those “neutral” candidates it is likely that

12 Considering Fijian topology and ethnic composition, it is likely that many constituencies will not be very contingent, possibly stretching over different islands. This disadvantage is regarded as negligible. For the constituency set-up underlying this suggestion, it will be necessary to increase the size of the legislature by one seat. A more detailed discussion of the drawing of constituency boundaries will be necessary, but remains beyond the scope of this project. 13 This is clearly in contrast to the current electoral system, which allows the derivation of a probabilistic model beyond voter preference profiles as computed in Kumar and Prasad (2004).

17 such a candidate will win the “third” seat in a constituency. This is the second best outcome for both of the two ethnies: predictably so, none of the two is at a disadvantage or advantage over the other. This does however require mutual cooperation (C). Ranking high only candidates of one’s own ethnicity is defection (D)

This situation can be analyzed as a typical Prisoner’s The Prisoner’s Dilemma Dilemma game, in which mutual cooperation is beneficial and B possible, but individually irrational, as we will show (Oye 2003). C D Figure 01 shows the respective payoff matrix. 3 4

C Let us know look at individual preference orderings: 3 1 unilateral defection (DC), as described above yields the highest A benefit, followed by mutual cooperation (CC) and mutual 1 2

D defection (DD). Mutual cooperation is favored over mutual 4 2 defection as it predictably ensures the status quo, whereas mutual defection alters it in an unpredictable manner. Preference ordering: DC > CC > DD > CD Considering the existential nature of the ethnic division that we Joint benefits: have already discussed, we deem it reasonable to assume that CC > CD, DC > DD voters and ethnic groups behave risk-adversely. Unrequited Fig. 01: Payoff Matrix for Group cooperation yields the worst individual benefit, as in this case, Voting Behavior in Fiji under STV in heterogeneous 3-MDs. the status quo is changed in favor of the other ethnic group. By contrast, mutual cooperation (CC) is the strategy that yields the highest joint benefit, followed by unilateral defection or unrequited cooperation respectively (CD, DC). Mutual defection (DD) yields the worst common payoff. We consider the prospects for cooperation good with regards to this instance of a Prisoner’s Dilemma: elections are recurring events. Social actors can sanction defection by tit-for-tat strategies (Oye 2003). Furthermore, we have assumed a worst-case scenario, in which all voters will have exclusively ethnic preference profiles. As we have argued already, it can however be assumed that some non-ethnic candidates will also receive some first-preferences, further improving their prospects.

After several iterations – or arguably already in the first iteration, due to the “Shadow of the Future”, the anticipation of those very iterations – our system will guarantee roughly one non- ethnic candidate per district (2003). In this way, the electoral system “subsidizes” non-ethnic parties, guaranteeing them a combined seat share of 33 per cent, opening a new “market” for

18 political competition beyond ethnicity that was previously not present. We assume that this strong incentive will attract more political actors to compete for the non-ethnic sector. Any stance on ethnically divisive issues will be strongly penalized by voters, since they want to maintain the status quo of ethnic power relations in the legislative. To compete for votes, non- ethnic candidates will thus have to differentiate on dimensions other than ethnicity. We hypothesize that this will help Fijian society to develop a structured party system, which, once in place, attracts ever more votes. Empirical support for this hypothesis comes from Northern Ireland, where STV has been found to “benefit some of the nonsectarian ‘middle’ parties like the Alliance and The Women’s Coalition, which received lower-order votes from both sides (…) and were proportionally overrepresented in the new assembly” (Reilly 2002: 160). Reilly – in contrast to Fraenkel – firmly believes in the power of deliberate electoral engineering and in theoretical support of our claim argues that “by changing the incentives and payoffs available to political actors in their search for electoral victory, astutely crafted electoral rules can make some types of behavior more politically rewarding than others” (156).

Non-ethnic parties may also be privileged in coalition building. Since it is unlikely that any two parties of the two juxtaposed ethnic blocs form a political alliance, the non-ethnic parties will have a much higher chance to form government, giving them a greater power index (Banzhaf as cited in Leech 2002). This will endow them with more resources to further develop. Since generally, “politicians aim at reelection”, non-ethnic parties have an incentive to remain neutral on ethnic questions and to actively promote moderate, conciliatory policies, once in government (Horowitz 2002). Moreover it is likely, that non-ethnic parties will consist of candidates of both ethnicities; a fact that may alleviate the danger for political uprisings as, all coalitions including trans-ethnic parties will include members of both ethnicities.

Of course the introduction of STV in Fiji would go hand in hand with the abolition of the currently constitutionally prescribed cabinet representation of any party holding a minimum of eight seats in Parliament, as we believe that such measure renders efficient coalition building impossible and decreases governability. Other merits of an STV in heterogeneous 3-MDs include the agnostic nature of the electoral system: it does not reinforce ethnicity, but grants the option for ethnic representation. Also, the system ensures constituency linkage, adequately responding to the stage of development

19 of Fijian society and at the same time further improving the prospects for active conciliation in competition.

Clearly, the proposed system is systematically disproportional – but only with regards to the very phenomena that it was designed to manufacture: non-ethnic vote share. Voter preferences for ethnic representation are only altered so as to improve non-ethnic representation. The preferences themselves, however, are not altered. Contrasting governability versus proportionality, the system clearly places a premium on the former criterion. The system also deviates from the conventional normative claim to discourage strategic voting. Moreover the system may be criticized for being to difficult to understand, including the game-theoretic logic that needs to be embraced by voters and political elites. The fact that it will not be necessary for all voters to completely understand the system, the simplicity of the message that ultimately needs to be communicated as well as the AV experience – were at least political elites quickly adapted to the logic of the system – leads us to hope that this will not be a problem. In contrast to 1997, one would nevertheless initiate an educational program alerting the population to the changes in the electoral system. Comparing the cost and benefits and the risks and advantages of the system, we conclude that the above-mentioned reservations can be neglected.

Other Alternatives

In the following we shall briefly discuss and refute other possible electoral systems for the Sovereign Democratic Republic of the Fiji Islands. Proportional representation, chiefly advocated by Jon Fraenkel is not an option for Fiji, as we have already discussed in part. With the Fijian polity lacking a structured party system, the centrifugal tendencies of PR are bound to created a harshly ethnically polarized party system (2003, Reilly 2002). Single Member Plurality, on the other hand, already failed in the past. By marginalizing Indo- Fijians it has led to democratic deficits and political unrest. Furthermore, it does nothing to overcome the ethnic divide or manufacture trans-ethnic parties. Similarly, the double ballot in heterogeneous districts will lead to an overrepresentation of ethnic Fijians, who now constitute a marginal, albeit significant majority. Playing the ethnic card “can offer greater rewards than those

20 of moderation. Politics can quickly turn centrifugal, as the center is pulled apart by extremist forces and ‘winner-take-all’ rules the day”. (Reilly 2002: 156) Another, highly interventionist response to ethnically divided party systems is mixed ethnic list voting, in which parties are required to present ethnically mixed lists – with proportions pre- assigned – in each constituencies. Voters are forced to “base their choices on issues other than ethnicity” (Reilly 2002: 156). Suppressing all ethnic representation may be highly conducive to jumpstart a structured party system, but it is not a feasible approach for Fiji, where such an approach is bound to create political unrest.

Conclusion

Polities that are dominated by often essentializing ethnically framed divides to our mind, are remnants of pre-modernity that are to be overcome. We conclude from our discussion of electoral engineering in Fiji that respective institutional prescriptions can help to alleviate and overcome ethnically framed divisions and help to bring about structured, modern party systems. To make sound suggestions, it is necessary to consider the overall stage of modernization of the society, and to engineer accordingly. Prescriptions from one country may not be uncritically adopted for others: every “patient” will react differently, require thorough investigation and special treatment. It is conceded that to judge the effects of any electoral system, a “continuity of experience” has to be guaranteed first. To overcome pre-modern inertia, to educate voters and political actors, and for structural incentives to exert their influence it needs, above all, one thing: time (Reilly 2002: 167). Especially in the case of Fiji, a country frequently shaken by political unrest, it will be hard to ensure a close season for the electoral system. Deliberate intervention backed by decisive coercive power may be necessary to guarantee a successful development.

Despite the seemingly poor prospects for effective and sustainable democracy in the Fiji Islands, we strongly believe that with a bit of time and well-thought institutional interventions, it will be possible to help the archipelago develop into a flourishing, diverse but liberal democracy. In that, with this contribution, we proudly seek to refute any relativist argument, discrediting rule “of the people, by the people and for the people” as the ultimate, universal and best- known form of government for mankind (Lincoln: 1863).

21 References

An Introduction to Fiji’s Electoral System. (2005). Election 2001 Fiji Islands. Retrieved November 17, 2005, from http://www.elections.gov.fj/introduction.html. Axelrod, Robert M. (1970): Conflict of Interest – A Theory Of Divergent Goals With Applications To Politics. Chicago: Markham Publishing Company. Bogaards, Matthijs (2004): Electoral Systems and the Management of Ethnic Conflict in the Balkans, in Alina Mungiu-Pippidi and Ivan Krastev (eds.) Nationalism After Communism: Lessons Learned 247-268. Budapest: CEU Press. Brubaker, Rogers (2002): Ethnicity Without Groups. Archives Européennes de Sociologie 43(2), 163-189. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Fiji. (2005). Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) World Factbook Retrieved November 12, 2005, from http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/fj.html. Elections on the Fiji Islands. (2005). Electionworld.org. Retrieved November 12, 2005, from http://www.electionworld.org/fiji.htm. Farrell, David M. (2001): Electoral Systems – A Comparative Introduction. London: Macmillan. Fijian Electoral System. (2005). Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved November 17, 2005, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_system_of_Fiji. Fiji (2005). Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved November 17, 2005, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiji. Fiji. (2005). Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved November 16, 2005, from http://search.eb.com/eb/article-9117356. Fraenkel, Jon (2003): The Failure of Electoral Engineering in Fiji. Journal of South Pacific Law. Retrieved November, 12, 2005, from http://vauatu.usp.ac.fj/journal_splaw/Special Interest/Fiji2000/Fiji_Fraenkel1.html. Fraenkel, Jon & Bernard Grofman (2004): A Neo-Downsian Model of the Alternative Vote As a Mechanism For Mitigiating Ethnic Conflict In Plural Societies. Public Choice 121: 487-506. The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Gellner, Ernest A. (1964): Nationalism in Thought and Change. London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson. Gellner, Ernest A. (1983): Nations and Nationalism. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Horowitz, Donald L. (2004): The Alternative Vote and Interethnic Moderation – A Reply To Fraenkel and Grofman. Public Choice 121: 507-516. The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Kumar, Sunial & Biman C. Prasad (2004): Preferential Voting and Political Engineering – The Case of Fiji’s 1999 and 2001 General Elections. Commonwealth & Comparative Politics 42: 312-332. London: Taylor & Francis Ltd. Leech: Dennis (2002): Designing the Voting System for the Council of the European Union. Public Choice 113: 437- 464. The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Lijphart, Arend (1999): Patterns of Democracy – Government Forms and Performance in Thirty-Six Countries. New Haven, MA & London: Yale University Press. Lincoln, Abraham (1863): The Gettysburg Address. Abraham Lincoln Online. Retrieved December 05, 2005 from http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln/speeches/gettysburg.htm. One Year On: Fiji's Fragile Democracy (2005). British Broadcasting Coorporation (BBC) News. Retrieved November 16, 2005, from http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/not_in_website/syndication/monitoring/media_reports/1339829.stm. Oye, Kenneth A. (2003): The Conditions for Cooperation in World Politics. In Art, R. J. & Jervis R. (eds.), International Politics – Enduring Concepts and Contemporary Issues (81-94). New York: Longman-Addison-Wesley. Reconciliation, Tolerance & Unity Bill. (2005). Fiji Government Online Portal. Retrieved November 16, 2005, from, http://www.fiji.gov.fj/publish/cat_event.shtml. Reilly, Benjamin (2002): Electoral Systems for Divided Societies. Journal of Democracy 13: 156-170. Washington, D.C.: National Endowment for Democracy. Sartori, Giovanni (1994): Comparative Constitutional Engineering – An Inquiry Into Structures, Incentives and Outcomes. New York: New York University Press. Timeline: Fiji. (2005). British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) News. Retrieved November 16, 2005, from http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/country_profiles/1300499.stm. Van den Berghe, Pierre (1981): Ethnicity as Kin Selection – The Biology of Nepotism. The Ethnic Phenomenon 15-36. Elsevier. Weber, Max (1946): From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology. H. H. Gerth and Wright Mills (eds.). New York: Oxford University Press.

22

Appendix

23 Appendix 01: Sample ballot from the 2001 Fiji General Elections. Retrieved on 21 December 2005 from http://www.elections.gov.fj/voter/ballot/ballot04.jpg.

24 Appendix 02: Party Bröcheler Fluctuation indicated by change in seat share.

F S S 2 ind = "( old ! new ) Party Bröcheler Fluctuation Index Formula.

Table 1. Fiji Elections Outcome, 1999 and 2001

Number of Seat Share (%) Number of Seat Share (%) Party Seats 1999 1999 Seats 2001 2001

Fiji Labour Party 37 52.1 27 38.0 United Fiji Party 0 0.0 32 45.1 National Federation Party 0 0.0 1 1.4 Conservative Alliance Party 0 0.0 6 8.5 Fijian Political Party 8 11.3 0 0.0 New Labour Unity Party 0 0.0 2 2.8 Protector of Fiji 0 0.0 0 0.0 11 15.5 0 0.0 Party of National Unity 4 5.6 0 0.0 United General Party 2 2.8 1 1.4 Christian Democratic Alliance 3 4.2 0 0.0 Nationalist Vanua Tako Lavo Party 1 1.4 0 0.0 Non-partisans / Independents 5 7.0 2 2.8

Total 71 100 71 100

Party Fluctuation Index: 52.4

Table 2. German Elections Outcome, 2002 and 2005 Number of Seat Share (%) Number of Seats Seat Share (%) Party Seats 2002 2002 2005 2005

CDU/CSU 248 41.1 226 36.8 SPD 251 41.6 222 36.2 FDP 47 7.8 61 9.9 Left/PDS 2 0.3 54 8.8 Green 55 9.1 51 8.3

Total 603 100 614 100

Party Fluctuation Index: 11.2

25 Appendix 03: Visualization of a possible violation of (lower) preferences of voters by party ticket vote transfers in the above-the-line-voting regime (Bröcheler/Held 2005).

26 Appendix 04: Calculation of the Gallagher Index of Disproportionality for the 2001 Fiji General Election.

Table 3. Fiji Elections Outcome, 2001 Vote Share Number Seat Share Party (%) of Seats (%)

Fiji Labour Party 34.8 27 38.0 United Fiji Party 26 32 45.1 National Federation Party 10.1 1 1.4 Conservative Alliance Party 9.9 6 8.5 Fijian Political Party 5.5 0 0.0 New Labour Unity Party 4.5 2 2.8 Protector of Fiji 2.2 0 0.0 Fijian Association Party 1.3 0 0.0 Party of National Unity 1.2 0 0.0 United General Party 0.5 1 1.4 Non-partisans/Independents 2.7 2 2.8 Other 1.3 0 0.0

Total 100 71 100

Gallagher Index of Disproportionality: 15.74

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