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THE AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY
School of International, Political and Strategic Studies State, Society and Governance in Melanesia State Society and in Governance Melanesia
DISCUSSION PAPER
Discussion Paper 2010/5
OCEANIA’s political institutions and transitions1
The Pacific Islands region includes entities Pitcairn Island with only 45 inhabitants. JON closely incorporated with the metropolitan Of the 9.7 million people who inhabit the FRAENKEL powers located around the Pacific Rim, 551,500 km2 land area of Oceania, just such as Guam (USA), Rapa Nui (Chile) and over two-thirds are in PNG. Tokelau (New Zealand), as well as inde- Classical political science questions pendent states like Papua New Guinea, Fiji have been addressed in strikingly different and Kiribati. The region includes countries ways across the region—whether to accom- that achieved independence less than thir- modate ethnic diversity through unitary, ty years ago as well as those still in the devolved or federal systems; whether to process of adjustment to the post-colonial handle conflict through majoritarian or pro- order. It includes resource-rich territories portional electoral systems and/or through with strong potential for integration into the power sharing arrangements, and wheth- world economy alongside chronically er to adopt parliamentary or presiden- resource-poor countries with limited ave- tial systems or, as in Kiribati and in the nues for export-driven economic growth. It includes territories with open access to autonomous region of Bougainville, some metropolitan labour markets, and countries hybrid between the two. Other important without. It includes an extraordinary ethno- questions for the region have been how linguistic diversity, mostly in Melanesia, to meld traditional forms of governance which alone accounts for one-fifth of the with imported institutions; how to respond world’s documented living languages.2 It to exceptionally low levels of women’s includes relatively big nations like PNG representation and how to build states in (6.6 million) alongside tiny micro-states countries where—for many who live in rural like Niue, which has a population of only areas and engage largely in subsistence 1,500, and minute dependent territories like cultivation—the state matters little. Oceania’s Political Institutions and Transitions
Relationship to New Caledonia is unique: as a result of the metropolitan powers 1998 Noumea Accord, the territory has special legislative powers and a schedule for phased expansion of domestic political control ahead Close integration of territories with metropoli- of a referendum on independence between tan powers is a legacy of the colonial expe- 2014–2019. To agree to that accord entailed rience. Hawai‘i became the fiftieth Pacific such a rupture with the doctrine of indivisibility state in 1959, while other American Pacific of the Republic that France had to hold a territories—Guam, American Samoa, and nationwide referendum, the result of which the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas earned New Caledonia a special provision in (CNMI)—are described by the US Supreme the constitution (Maclellan 2005: 397). Court as having become “appurtenant to but Of the sixteen territories in the not a part of the United States” (Underwood world that remain on the UN list of non- 2006: 7). Rapa Nui was annexed in 1888 but decolonized territories, the Pacific accounts only legally absorbed into Chile’s Valparaiso for five—American Samoa, Guam, New Province in 1966. Residence on the island Caledonia, Pitcairn Island and Tokelau. Nei- by Chileans is still restricted as is acquisi- ther of Tokelau’s two referenda (2006 and tion of property by those not of Rapa Nui 2007) on whether to become self-governing descent. By contrast, after West Papua was achieved the required two-thirds majority, absorbed into Indonesia with United Nations and Pitcairn Island’s links with Britain have, (UN) approval after the “Act of Free Choice” if anything, been reinforced by adjudication in 1969, a mixture of spontaneous and of child abuses cases by the British Privy sponsored transmigration brought in three Council. American military build up on Guam quarters of a million people, mainly from the in the new millennium makes independence islands of Java and Sulawesi. Integration less likely, despite longstanding Chamorro with a powerful neighbour tends to open the disquiet about existing arrangements. Inclu- floodgates to settlement, as on Saipan (Com- sion on, or exclusion from, the UN list can monwealth of the Northern Marianas) where prove highly controversial, with behind-the- the majority were non-indigenes in 2000, scenes manoeuvring at the UN headquarters mostly from the Philippines or China. in New York or Geneva being used to exert New Caledonia, French Polynesia and leverage towards independence back home. Wallis and Futuna, are in law, part of the The incentives are clear. In 2008, UN Secre- French nation-state; all participate in elections tary General Ban Ki-moon urged the world for the national assembly and the Presidency. “to complete the decolonization process in The CFP franc, the currency in all three every one of the remaining sixteen Non-Self- territories, is pegged to the euro. In 1958, Governing Territories”.3 Pro-independence French President General Charles de Gaulle leader Oscar Temaru, after his initial election insisted on the doctrine of the “one and as French Polynesia’s President in 2004, indivisible republic”, and forced voters in sought to get his country onto the UN list fol- French Polynesia to choose between colonial lowing the precedent set by New Caledonia integration or abrupt secession. Sixty-four per in the wake of the 1980s Kanak uprising. cent voted in favour of staying with France. Samoa was the first of the Pacific Island The pro-independence movement was states to secure independence in 1962, and defeated, and after disturbances in Papeete, the unique constitutional arrangements cho- its leader, Pouvanaa a Oopa, was imprisoned sen at that time (discussed later) have prob- (Henningham 1992: 123–26). The peoples ably contributed to that country’s postcolonial of the French Pacific remain confronted with stability. Tonga formally became independent those stark options, although in modified in 1970, but here the colonial hand was, for forms: since 2003 they may opt to become the most part, light. Financial irregularities “territorial collectivities”, with considerable under King George Tupou II (1893–1918) led autonomy. French Polynesia went a step the British colonists to demand closer control further by adopting its own autonomy statute. (Fusitu’a & Rutherford 1977: 180). Britain Oceania’s Political Institutions and Transitions
became preoccupied with Europe during the the Santo rebellion in 1980 was the most 1914–1918 war, and on its heels the Great severe of the secessionist crises accompa- Depression enabled Tupou II’s more capable nying independence anywhere in the Pacific successor Queen Salote to preserve Tonga’s region: Jimmy Stevens’ Vemerana Provision- political autonomy. Fiji’s independence was al Government on Santo threatened to break inevitably problematic because of the need up the emerging state, until the rebellion was to reconcile the competing aspirations of the halted by the deployment of British, French, majority Fiji Indian and minority indigenous and Papua New Guinean troops. The only Fijian leaders (Norton 2004). Ethnic Fijian actual case of secession in Oceania was claims that since the country had been ceded exceptionally peaceful: in 1976, the British to Queen Victoria by their chiefs in 1874 it Gilbert and Ellice Islands decided to go their should now be returned to those indigenous separate ways and a few years later became chiefs were to become a rallying cry of the independent as Kiribati (1979) and Tuvalu ethno-nationalists who overthrew elected (1978).5 Bougainville’s decade-long conflict governments in 1987 and 2000. Fiji Indian first with PNG and then internally is the most claims that the communally based electoral severe of the modern-day secessionist dis- system left as a compromise by the British putes. Its peace settlement, like that of the at independence perpetuated race-based New Caledonian crisis of the 1980s, included voting were to become a prominent theme of a central provision that delayed the decision the military-backed interim government that on independence for at least a decade.6 emerged in the wake of Fiji’s third coup in In between the extremes of independence December 2006. and incorporation, the Pacific Islands are Constitutional choices made at indepen- host to a range of hybrid political arrange- dence also had enduring implications else- ments between island territories and former where in the region, in contrast to Africa colonial rulers. New Zealand experimented where initial legal frameworks bequeathed with Compacts of Free Association with Niue by colonial powers were often torn up and and the Cook Islands. Palau, the Federated new arrangements adopted (Chazan 1992). States of Micronesia and the Republic of the Depth of consultation made a difference Marshall Islands entered Compacts of Free to the political authority of whatever struc- Association with the US that gave them con- tures were chosen. PNG (1975) and Kiribati siderable autonomy (allowing them, unlike (1979) used constitutional conventions for Cook Islands and Niue, to join the UN), deliberation which left recommendations that but left the US with “strategic denial” rights had lasting political legitimacy (Macdonald enabling the exclusion of other rival super- 1982). By contrast, although there was more powers powers from establishing military local consultation than is often appreciated bases in that American sphere of influence. in Solomon Islands, the 1978 Independence As a result of an associated deal, missiles Order dealt with issues of citizenship in ways can be fired from Vandenberg air base in that pleased the British Colonial Office and California across a 6,760 km arc through the swelled the size of the golden handshake, Pacific sky before plunging into the lagoon of but provided no durable answer to what was Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands. From to become a perennial issue in Solomon there, they can be retrieved and studied by Islands politics: how to balance the powers US scientists working at the nearby Ronald of the central government against those of Reagan Ballistic Missile Defence Test Site. the separate islands.4 The western break- For this, Kwajalein’s chiefs—including former away movement that emerged in 1978 was President Imata Kabua—receive substantial echoed by demands for devolution during rental payments, only a fraction of which a constitutional review a decade later, and trickles down to the Ebeye indigenous settle- then again in the wake of the June 2000 coup ment adjacent to the American base. Nego- when many provinces threatened to secede tiations around a new land use agreement from the nation (Premdas et al. 1984; Mama- for Kwajalein remain an issue of contention loni 1988; Fraenkel 2004: 182). In Vanuatu, between Kwajalein chiefs and the Majuro- Oceania’s Political Institutions and Transitions
based Marshallese government. Washington to urge a more belligerent negotiating stance pragmatically extended its 17 December over the new compact and the land use 2008 deadline for achieving agreement over agreement for the Ronald Reagan Ballistic Kwajalein for a further five years. Missile Defence Test Site. For the Marshall Islands and Federated The economic advantages of close inte- States of Micronesia, the 1986 Compacts of gration with a wealthy metropolitan power Free Association expired in 2001. They were are everywhere apparent; the independent extended two years before being renewed for states are, on average, poorer than those that a further 20-year period in 2003, although now have been incorporated by powerful neigh- with greater scrutiny by the US Department bours around the Pacific Rim or those that of the Interior. Palau commenced its fifteen- have retained close ties with former colonial year compact later than its neighbours in powers (Bertram 1999: 114). For many in the 1994, and so the arrangement expired French territories, “free association” arrange- only in 2009. US Secretary of State Hilary ments such as those that connect Pacific Clinton agreed a one-year extension and states to America and New Zealand would “compact review” talks commenced in May be preferable to the controls from Paris, but 2009. Renewed compacts provide the US- the conventional French government posi- associated states with sizeable additions to tion, echoing the Gaullist doctrine of 1958, is government revenue—US$3.2 billion over to insist that postcolonial linkages can only the 20 years for the Federated States of be decided after the territory settles upon Micronesia (FSM) and the Marshall Islands. independence. Financial incentives thus act They also give access to costly federal as strong deterrents to loosening ties, even programs, for example in health, education if such marked internal inequalities exist that and the US mainland postal service. indigenous groups still back political parties Atomic rents kept French Polynesia pros- who push for independence. perous for many years. Between 1966 and 1975, 41 atmospheric tests were conducted Electoral Systems on the remote atolls of Mururoa and Fan- gataufa, followed by 137 underground tests ending in 1996, when France signed the Oceania has a history of electoral experi- Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. mentation. Enthusiasm for preferential voting French aid then declined, but it still accounts in the Pacific has been encouraged by Aus- for 35 per cent of French Polynesian GDP. tralia’s adoption of the alternative vote (AV) Due to French finance, New Caledonia and for the federal parliament in 1918. Colonially French Polynesia easily have the highest inherited first-past-the-post systems have income per capita in the Pacific. For the been ditched in favour of single-member pref- American nuclear-affected islands, indepen- erential systems in Fiji and PNG, although dence comes at a price. The Marshall Islands in both cases without the expected results earned global notoriety because of the Bravo (Fraenkel & Grofman 2006; May 2008). In nuclear test on Bikini Atoll in 1954. In total, Fiji, the alleged “unfairness” of outcomes 67 tests were carried out on Bikini and under the AV system was used to justify neighbouring Enewetak between 1946 and coups both in 2000 and 2006. When it was 1958, the effects of which spread eastwards adopted in the mid-1990s, AV was intended to Rongelap and Utrik. Washington insists to boost the chances of the moderate cen- that the US$250 million paid to the Marshal- trists, and to disadvantage ethnic extremists. lese Nuclear Claims Tribunal under the first Instead, it triggered a sharpening of electoral compact, and the similar amount paid for polarization. Nauru has a unique simultane- federal programs to affected victims, was “full ously tallied preferential voting system which and final” compensation. The Marshallese oddly resembles the arrangements invented government disagrees. MPs representing by nineteenth-century French mathematician the nuclear-affected islands have at times Jean-Charles de Borda (Reilly 2001). Kiri- made common cause with Kwajalein’s chiefs bati has a two-round system similar to that Oceania’s Political Institutions and Transitions
in mainland France, although unusually it is have a single vote, but constituencies have used in multi-member constituencies. That multiple members. Thus, if there is a 40 per system permits voters to express preferenc- cent francophone minority in a three-seat es, although over two rounds rather than in a constituency, and if francophones avoid split- single-round of AV voting.7 It is also consider- ting their votes, they should be able to pick ably simpler to administer and count than the up at least one of the three seats. The sys- AV system, even if the need for two elections tem achieved its objective reasonably well inevitably raises administrative costs. in the initial elections after independence, List proportional representation (PR) sys- when the parties were reasonably disciplined tems are used only in the French territories. and the contest was a bipolar one between Unlike majoritarian systems, list PR systems the VP and the francophone Union of Moder- aim to make the share of seats won by each ate Parties. From the late 1980s, however, party roughly equivalent to its share of votes, the francophone/anglophone cleavage faded although there is a five per cent threshold in significance, and parties splintered (Van below which parties gain no seats at all. Trease 2005). An increasing number of can- By definition, list PR requires multi-member didates contested elections, a feature also constituencies. New Caledonia, for example, witnessed in other neighbouring Melanesian is divided into three constituencies: the south countries. As political parties have multiplied, (with 32 seats), the north (with 15) and the SNTV has become less predictable, and has Loyalty Islands (with 7) for elections to the been described as resembling “the nearest 54-member territorial congress. Voters sim- [thing] the electoral system world possesses ply tick the ballot paper next to their favoured to a fruit machine” (Ellis 2006). political party, and the parties submit lists of Principles of universal suffrage and voter their candidates in order of preference. After equality have, in some parts of the Pacific, the votes are tallied, electoral officials calcu- sat awkwardly alongside traditional systems late which members are elected according of authority. In Tonga, the King has not to each party’s share of the vote. In 2004, been—as often characterised—an absolutist President Gaston Flosse modified French monarch. Tonga’s kings have been bound Polynesia’s list PR voting system so as to by the 1875 Constitution. It is the weak pow- give a 30 per cent seat bonus to the winning ers of parliament that have set Tonga apart party, thus deliberately removing the system’s from its neighbours. The Prime Minister and proportionality. His aim was to give his Taho- Cabinet have been selected directly by the eraa Huiraatira Party a stable working major- King, and sat in the legislature alongside nine ity and to end many years of dependence nobles and nine people’s representatives. on coalition government. The result was a Although there has been universal adult suf- crashing defeat for Tahoeraa Huiraatira, and frage, there has been no effort to achieve the election instead of pro-independence voter equality: the holders of 33 noble titles leader Oscar Temaru. Instead of opening an selected nine noble representatives, while era of stability, French Polynesia entered a the rest of Tonga’s 100,000 people chose politically chaotic period, with the presidency nine people’s representatives. Commitment switching back and forth between the various to change has been in the air since 2005, factions. Paris stepped in to squash Flosse’s oddly preceding the riots that destroyed failed reform in 2007. much of Nuku’alofa in late 2006. In 2005, Vanuatu is one of the few countries in the for the first time one of the people’s repre- world to still use the single non-transferable sentatives, Dr Feleti Sevele, became Prime vote (SNTV) system, alongside Jordan and Minister. The King subsequently declined to Afghanistan. In an effort to bind francophone overrule Dr Sevele’s choice of cabinet min- secessionists into the emerging Vanuatu isters. Upon his coronation in 2008, the new state, British and French colonial authorities King, George Tupou V, committed to a major- agreed on SNTV in the hope of avoiding a ity popularly elected parliament. Parliament clean sweep for Walter Lini’s anglophone settled upon a first-past-the-post system, and Vanua’aku Pati (VP). Under SNTV, voters elections for the country’s first ever major- Oceania’s Political Institutions and Transitions
ity popularly elected assembly took place in although it has a directly elected President November 2010. (i) the nominees for the presidential election The principle of universal suffrage was are selected through a complex parliamen- not accepted by the architects of Samoa’s tary ballot; (ii) the president must form his 1962 constitution. Initially, both voters and cabinet from within parliament; and (iii) the candidates had to be holders of matai titles president, despite being directly elected, can (a term often misleadingly translated as be ousted by a no-confidence vote within “chief”, but possibly better translated as parliament, but doing this precipitates a gen- “family head”). A visiting UN team in 1959 eral dissolution of parliament. Those choices argued that since there was an internal are aimed at lessening the possibility of grid- family decision-making process prior to the lock between an unpopular President and a award of matai titles, the Samoan system hostile parliament, diminishing the likelihood could be regarded as one of “election at of mid-term removal of the head of state two stages” (So’o & Fraenkel, 2005: 335). and giving the head of government a direct During the 1980s, that system was widely popular mandate. As a result, Kiribati has perceived—within Samoa—to have led to a experienced much less political instability proliferation of matai titles, triggered by rival than neighbours like Tuvalu and Nauru. parties exploiting the constitution’s incentives In the Pacific parliamentary systems, to expand their voter bases by awarding government formation can entail a delicate titles. In 1990, there were 21,649 such titles, balancing act. In Solomon Islands, form- almost double the level a decade earlier. In ing a cabinet has always entailed a care- that same year, the country voted to shift to ful harmonizing of representation from the a universal suffrage, although retaining the most populous island of Malaita with that matai-only qualification for candidates. The from Guadalcanal and the Western Province. change had several important repercussions Oddly, this has at times benefited politicians from none of those three provinces, such as for Samoan politics, but it did not halt the three-time Prime Minister Solomon Mamaloni multiplication in the number of matai titles. (from Makira) or 2001–2006 Prime Minister In 1999, over 35,000 matai titles were on the Sir Allen Kemakeza (from Savo), who could books of the Land and Titles Court (So’o & appear to stand above the fray. In PNG, Fraenkel, 2005: 342). it is inconceivable that a cabinet should exclude representatives from the highlands, Presidential or or Papua or the islands. Even in Fiji, which Parliamentary systems in many respects departs from Melanesian political norms owing to its bipolar indigene- Indian cleavage, cautious inclusion of power- The Pacific’s presidential systems have been ful regions becomes politically astute. When largely in the north where the US influ- Laisenia Qarase sought to forge a power- ence exerts greatest sway. Freely associated sharing government with the Fiji Labour Palau most closely resembles the US model, Party in May 2006, he was careful to secure with a president and congress and even a his indigenous Fijian base by drawing in par- miniature replica of Washington’s Capitol amount chiefs from the Kubuna, Burebasaga building. The Commonwealth of the North- and Tovata confederacies. The neglect of ern Marianas, Guam and American Samoa the Tongan-influenced Lau Islands, already have governors, rather than presidents, but suffering from a fading of the former glory are faithful to the American model in having associated with the deceased Ratu Mara’s direct popular elections for the head of gov- years as Prime Minister and then President, ernment. The Marshall Islands and Nauru proved to be that government’s Achilles depart from the pattern in having “presidents” Heel. The revenge of Mara’s descendants, that are more like Prime Ministers in the or rather the husbands of his daughters, was Westminster system; they are elected by to become an important aspect of the coup of parliaments. Kiribati is a unique hybrid since December 2006.8 Oceania’s Political Institutions and Transitions
Romantics often criticise the colonial to engage in spectacular changes in affinity imposition of Westminster and see this as as they cross the floor to join government, having disturbed traditional styles of politi- often justifying this by claiming—probably cal organisation which were, it is claimed, accurately—that they were not elected to characterised by consensus, and the “Pacific government in order to remain on the opposi- way”.9 Yet the cleavages that prevail across tion benches. Many outside cabinet in PNG the Pacific between government and opposi- have preferred to sit on the “middle benches” tion are not mere reflections of inherited insti- poised between government and opposi- tutions. In the small close-knit micro-states, tion, so as to be open to offers of ministe- hostility between the government faction and rial portfolios but equally accessible to being the opposition leadership can on occasions courted by opposition schemers planning become far more bitter than in the indus- assembly of a new government. Regular no- trialised mass democracies (even though confidence votes in Solomon Islands are alliances can also, in other circumstances, popularly believed to be money-making become fluid and personality-based, and schemes: even if they do not succeed, the many opposition leaders will, have some MPs all round earn large sums of cash as point, served as ministers together in cabi- recipients of rival factions’ bids for political net with those who are now adversaries). support. After Vanuatu’s 2008 Prime Minis- Opposition leaders may find themselves out terial election, two MPs were inadvertently of government for consecutive parliamen- heard live on national radio talking about the tary terms, rendering them vulnerable in their amounts of cash that had exchanged hands, home constituencies. Government victories unaware that the microphone was still turned are carried beyond the floor of the parlia- on (Van Trease 2009). mentary chamber affecting, for example, Pacific parliamentarians, although not opposition leaders’ private business interests constrained by powerful party machines, or the promotion prospects of those in their may nevertheless be pressured by local kin groups. When a chance presents itself to constituents, wantoks or urban networks. dislodge such governments (either through The threat of electoral annihilation haunts a no-confidence vote or a prime ministe- Western Melanesian incumbents, who rial election), opposition leaders can become generally experience turnover rates well desperate, and willing to make deals they above 50 per cent. Politicians in Kiribati would otherwise prefer not to make with are intensely sensitive to home island wavering opportunists. That sharp rivalry opinion: while debate on government tabled amongst Pacific leaders is not, as often imag- legislation commands slender interest, ined, a mere reflection of colonially inherited question time—when MPs can be heard institutions can be seen by the regular legal live on national radio interrogating ministers contestation of imposed limits on Prime about matters of local significance—attracts Ministerial power (for example, Billy Hilly, intense interest. Popular engagement in Solomon Islands, 1993; Saufatu Sopoanga, parliamentary processes may be weak, but Tuvalu, 2002 and Serge Vohor, Vanuatu, public interest is strong. When the Marshall 2004, to name but a few). Islands Nitijela is in session, most shared Absence of major ideological cleavages taxis running down Majuro’s main street will or political parties with a substantial extra- be tuned into the debates. During the 1998– parliamentary membership can give Pacific 1999 struggles between the Kessai Note’s parliamentarians considerable freedom for United Democratic Party (UDP) and former manoeuvre. Occupying a ministerial portfolio President Imata Kabua, the public gallery of not only provides a salary and status that is the Nitijela was packed with onlookers. Jousts often impossible for a local to equal in the between government and opposition leaders private sector, it also provides access to state in Samoa can likewise grip public attention. funds and state leverage over foreign con- Voter turnout is far higher in the Pacific trolled resource-extractive industries. Par- Islands than in North America or Western ticularly in Melanesia, MPs have been known Europe, and would be higher still if duplicate Oceania’s Political Institutions and Transitions
or deceased voter registrations were deleted Kanak et Socialiste (FLNKS) and the French from the rolls. Popular engagement with loyalist Rassemblement pour la Calédonie politics is greater than often recognised in the dans la Republique (RPCR) was intense, but Pacific Islands, even if popular participation ethnicity was not coterminous with political in decision-making (e.g. through select allegiance. Some indigenous Kanaks backed committees) is weak and accountability the RPCR, while the pro-independence par- mechanisms work only through the crude ties always obtained at least some support three- to five-yearly ditching of incumbents at outside their core Melanesian voter base. each general election. The Noumea Accord process in New Caledo- nia may also have served to erode the bipo- Political Parties and lar divide, in the sense that parties on both sides have fractured politically. Institutional Integrity Legislation incentives took the heat off the bipolar con- flict, and permitted the political emergence of Nowhere in the Pacific Islands have the alternative currents of opinion. The territory popularly based political parties that are had long used a closed list proportional rep- so central to conventional western political resentation system, but in the 1998 Noumea thinking emerged. Left–right ideological Accord supplemented also proportionality cleavages do not anywhere shape the divide in the formation of cabinet through manda- between government and opposition. The tory power-sharing rules. The 1998 deal also only Pacific Island territories with fairly robust devolved power to the provincial assemblies. political parties are Fiji and New Caledonia, The contrast between the experience of Fiji although Vanuatu and French Polynesia have and New Caledonia illustrates the perils of some history of political party organisation.10 using majoritarian systems in bipolar societ- Ever since independence in Fiji, there has ies with race-based voting. been one party that appeals to the vast Few Pacific states have witnessed a majority of ethnic Fijians11 and another that strengthening of political party-style organi- represents the Fiji Indians.12 The Fijian sation. In the Marshall Islands, Kessai Note’s party has stood little chance in the Indian- UDP administration was elected in 1999 on a dominated constituencies and vice versa. “good governance”, accountability and trans- In 1997, when Fiji abandoned the first-past- parency platform ousting Imata Kabua’s gov- the-post system in favour of the AV system, ernment. The UDP government survived the politicians were persuaded that adopting this 2003 election, but by 2007 was confronted modified majoritarian system would be most by a rival party that was backed by Imata likely to encourage multi-ethnic government. Kabua and other leading chiefly families in That proved false. Over the three elections the Ralik chain, the Aelon Kein Ad (AKA). under AV, the party system polarized, so that The AKA struck a deal with Nitijela speaker, by the third election under the system in 2006 and Ratak chief, Litokwa Tomeing, and won one party claimed 80 per cent of the ethnic the 2007 election. Despite the appearance Fijian vote, while the other had 80 per cent of an “evolution” towards political party-style of the Indian vote. Despondency as a result organisation, allegiances remain fluid in the of the failure of the AV system to generate Marshall Islands. The triumph of the “vision- anticipated pro-moderation outcomes helps aries” against the “old guard” in Nauru in to explain why former centrist politicians and 2004 was not accompanied by development associated civil society activists sympathised of political parties; the reformist’s access to with the military coup of December 2006, political power always depended on court- even if their choice to do so only legitimised ing wavering opportunists with offers of the Bainimarama’s power grab. presidency. In the smaller Pacific states, a In New Caledonia, issue-based political hardening of the opposition often entails the polarization has also proved sharp, but not on formation of a political party but, if successful the ethnic pattern of Fiji. Rivalry in the 1980s in obtaining office, the new government will between the Front de Libération Nationale usually prefer to decry political party-style Oceania’s Political Institutions and Transitions
organisation and claim instead to be ruling in ments of the OLIPPAC violated the freedom the general interest. of movement provisions in the constitution.13 Towards the western Pacific, the absence Despite this, the myth of OLIPPAC- of robust political parties has become a engineered stability obtained considerable major issue, leading in some countries to currency, for there could be little doubt that ambitious legislation aimed at encouraging the political order was more stable than the construction of party-based systems. during the chaotic turn-of-the-millennium PNG’s 2001–2002 Organic Law on Political years (Standish 2000). The more plausible Parties and Candidates (OLIPACC) aimed explanation was better handling of the to fast-track the development of strong country’s second resources boom (Baton et parties by requiring those who back a Prime al 2009), and the availability of a good deal Minister after a general election to stick more money to grease the political wheels. with that choice in any votes of confidence, Other Melanesian countries have been budgetary votes and votes on constitutional inspired by the PNG experiment, hoping amendments. In an effort to avoid the horse- also to discipline their allegedly feckless and trading that follows each general election, unruly backbenchers. Serge Vohor’s short- the party with the largest share of votes is lived 2004 government in Vanuatu wanted to to be given the first opportunity to form a introduce PNG-like “grace periods”, but the government. court ruled the attempt unconstitutional, and That legislation is widely believed to have Vohor’s government fell to a no confidence ushered in a period of greater stability in challenge. In Solomon Islands, the post PNG; Sir Michael Somare’s National Alliance 2007 Sikua-led government was assisted by government survived a full 2002–2007 term Australian think-tanks in deliberations aimed in office, the first government since indepen- at adopting legislation inspired by OLIPPAC dence to have achieved this. Somare also in PNG.14 However, several ministers in succeeded in getting re-elected for a further Dr Sikua’s cabinet conspired against the term after the general election in 2007, and proposed constitutional amendment, which survived beyond the eighteen-month grace failed to obtain the required two-thirds period that ended in February 2009. Yet majority. Those ministers were sacked by there are doubts about this simplistic assess- Dr Sikua for this act of rebellion, but they ment of the stabilising merits of OLIPPAC. re-emerged, holding key portfolios, in the While the Prime Minister remained Somare, government led by new Prime Minister Danny deputy prime ministers changed repeatedly Philip after the August 2010 election. over 2002–2007, and ministers were regu- In PNG, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu, larly reshuffled. Contrary to the rules against bills and laws have been ostensibly aimed at floor-crossing, eleven MPs switched sides beefing up political parties, but in practice at from government to opposition during the strengthening governments and weakening 2002–2007 parliament, but none lost their the opposition. Grace periods during which seats as the law said they should do. The governments cannot be voted out of office Ombudsman—who was in law empowered tend to be much more popular than financing to act in such cases, if necessary to recom- a costly political party registration apparatus. mend a forfeit of seats—wisely preferred not Although popular concern centres on the to do so. The law proved a toothless tiger, horse-trading prior to Prime Ministerial elec- even if in practice floor-crossing did diminish tions, the rule giving the largest party the due to the perception of the threat of dis- first crack at forming a government—by mak- missal. Opposition inside parliament became ing this a one-shot game—generates even subdued not so much because of OLIPPAC greater potential for corruption and instability but because of the presence of a partisan than the previous arrangements. The risk speaker who closed down hostile debate with “grace periods”, and other forms of and ruled out of order questions that might restriction on “no confidence” motions, is that embarrass the government. In July 2010, they allow a deeply unpopular government to PNG’s Supreme Court ruled that key ele- retain office, and/or that they require the law Oceania’s Political Institutions and Transitions
courts to intervene to control the minutiae of yielded similar results in the third-largest 10 parliamentary conduct. French territory, Wallis and Futuna, where constituencies are smaller and where Women’s Representation numerous parties enter the contest. Although the parity law requires parties to lodge lists that alternate men and women, since most Of the nine countries worldwide that have “parties” in Wallis and Futuna obtain only a zero women members of parliament, single member the law does not have the Oceania accounts for five (Solomon Islands, intended effect. Adopting parity laws would FSM, Nauru, Palau and Tuvalu).15 PNG and have similar results in the other party-less the Marshall Islands have only a single Pacific microstates.16 Where political parties female MP. Fiji had eight until Bainimarama are absent or weak, reserved seats are dissolved parliament in December 2006. the only legal measure likely to increase Samoa and Niue have four, Guam, Cook the number of women in parliament. The Islands and Kiribati have three, and Vanuatu autonomous region of Bougainville is the sole two women MPs. Male dominance of entity in Oceania to have adopted reserved the political stage occurs not only in the seats for women. Three of Bougainville’s 41 national parliaments, but also in local-level seats are reserved for women. In both PNG assemblies. Traditional male preponderance and Solomon Islands, increasing numbers of in the political sphere, and the conservatism female candidates are contesting elections, of island societies, are the most frequently and in both countries there are pressures heard explanations for inequality in political for reserved seats to increase the number of representation. Yet change is in the air, at women in parliament. least in some parts of the Pacific. In western Although women are poorly represented Melanesia, a growing number of women in Pacific parliaments, they tend to be better are now contesting elections. By contrast, represented at the top levels of the civil ser- in some of the smaller and more remote vice, where appointments are more likely to islands, few women contest and those that do be on merit. Kiribati for example has only 3 are subjected to extraordinary pressures. In women in its 46 member parliament (6.5%), some Pacific Island polities, female leaders but 7 of the 15 top positions in the I-Kiribati prefer to keep out of the male-dominated civil service (46%) are occupied by females. political world, and to concentrate instead In Solomon Islands, Nauru and Samoa, the on influencing decisions behind the scenes percentage of women in top positions in the or through civil society activism (McCloud ministries is also markedly higher than the 2002). Increasingly aggressive electoral share in parliament. The secretaries in the contests have also diminished women’s I-Kiribati ministries are, probably uniquely chances on the campaign trail: in the PNG in the Pacific, paid considerably more than highlands, for example, candidates need parliamentarians. Much of the consultation access to large sums of cash to win, and around new legislation occurs through the they need large numbers of male campaign ministries, prior to agreement in cabinet backers in order to sustain control over the and before bills are tabled in parliament. In polling booths and coordinate the process of Kiribati, as in many other Pacific countries, “assisted voting” (i.e. the completion of ballot highly qualified women prefer to take posi- papers en masse by sympathisers). tions formulating and implementing policy, Temporary special measures have been rather than going on the election campaign used to increase the number of women in trail or joining male-dominated legislative parliament in the French territories and on assemblies. The Kiribati parliament is an Bougainville. The French law on parity has assembly open to those over the civil service given New Caledonia and French Polynesia retirement age of 55, and it is a place where close to 50 per cent female members of MPs focus largely on constituency matters territorial assemblies. That law has not rather than law making. Oceania’s Political Institutions and Transitions
Power-sharing accords ers again failed to make the arrangements work. Chaudhry stayed out of cabinet, and 11 eventually expelled two of the participating The Pacific has an interesting but little inter- FLP ministers. The shortlived 2006 power- nationally known experience with manda- sharing cabinet was the first government tory power-sharing accords. Nowhere in the since independence to have brought mem- world has witnessed such extensive litigation bers from country’s two largest parties—one about mandatory power-sharing rules as Fiji. representing the Fijians and the other the Fiji In the 1997 Fiji constitution, a power-sharing Indians—into cabinet (Green 2009). It lasted provision required that all parties with ten just seven months before being overthrown per cent or more of seats be proportionally by military commander Frank Bainimarama. represented in cabinet. The provision was In New Caledonia, by contrast, power- modelled on that in South Africa during the sharing provisions agreed as part of the 1998 transition from Apartheid, and similar rules Noumea Accord worked more smoothly, even were adopted in Northern Ireland as part of if they left the pro-independence parties in the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. When a minority. In all post-accord cabinets, the Mahendra Chaudhry formed his Labour-led loyalist parties dominated, based on their People’s Coalition cabinet after the 1999 Fiji ascendancy in the more densely populated election, he proved able to exclude the larg- Southern Province and their ability to gain est Fijian party, Rabuka’s Soqosoqo Vaka- a minority of seats in the majority Kanak vulewa ni Taukei, on the grounds that its Northern Province. During the initial post- leaders imposed conditions on cabinet entry Noumea Accord government, the pro-inde- that amounted to a decline of the invitation. pendence groups regularly took legal action When Chaudhry’s arch-adversary Laisenia regarding the composition of government. Qarase tried to follow that legal precedent However, after the 2001 assumption of the after the elections of 2001, the Court of Presidency by the RPCR’s Pierre Frogier, Appeal rejected his efforts as contrary to Kanak activist Déwé Gorodé was selected as the 1997 constitution. Qarase appealed, Vice President, thus meeting one of the major and the cases dragged on until 2004 before FLNKS demands. The 2004 election saw a the Supreme Court left Qarase’s Soqosoqo fracturing amongst the loyalist parties, with Duavata ni Lewenivanua party with no option the emergence of Avenir Ensemble, a trend other than to invite Chaudhry’s Fiji Labour continued at the 2009 election, with further Party (FLP) into cabinet. Qarase reluctantly splits this time affecting Avenir Ensemble. complied by offering the FLP a series of Pro-independence parties have also been token minor portfolios in a cabinet so swol- prone to schisms. The other Noumea Accord len that his former ministers also retained provisions of devolution of powers from Paris their portfolios. It was, unsurprisingly after to Noumea, and a rebalancing of income so much legal action, a compromise with towards the predominantly Kanak Northern the letter but not the spirit of the law. The and Loyalty Islands Provinces have helped to FLP condemned the expansion in cabinet encourage the emergence of new alignments size as a costly imposition on Fiji’s people also among the Kanak parties. and criticised the portfolios as trivial. Since New Caledonia’s arrangements had a a fresh election was anyway looming on the more solid foundation than those in Fiji. horizon, Chaudhry chose instead to occupy Provisions for the proportional distribution the opposition benches. of ministerial appointments fitted better with After the 2006 election, Qarase complied New Caledonia’s list PR electoral system more wholeheartedly with Fiji’s multi-party than with Fiji’s majoritarian AV system. Fiji’s cabinet rules, drawing nine senior FLP par- Westminster-based 1997 constitution was liamentarians into cabinet, and giving them not sufficiently redrafted after the belated major portfolios. It proved an enormously inclusion of the 10 per cent rule, and drafters popular decision, but Fiji’s political lead- did not fully consider the likely difficulties of Oceania’s Political Institutions and Transitions
a Prime Minister needing to form a coalition of sharper rivalry between the deceased 12 government to “command a majority” on the President’s successor, Imata Kabua and the floor of the house while at the same time opposition UDP led by a commoner, Kessai being required to form a power-sharing cabi- Note. net that includes all the qualifying parties. In the western Melanesian countries, Whereas Fiji’s power-sharing rule generated heightened instability during the 1990s was bipolar incentives for each ethnic group to encouraged by increasing interest from avoid splits that might entail parties falling foreign companies in the natural resource below the 10 per cent threshold required extractive sectors. The Solomon Islands for cabinet participation, New Caledonia’s government remained reasonably stable until rules allowed smaller parties to combine Solomon Mamaloni’s second government, with larger parties to boost cabinet entitle- when most ministers acquired strong links ments. New Caledonia’s arrangements were with logging companies (Frazer 1997: 41). considerably assisted by French aid subven- The political links of mining and forestry tions, and by a growing flexibility emanating companies became increasingly important from Paris as regards which institutions in PNG politics, particularly around election- might prove acceptable. Fiji had to tackle its time. Growing popular discontent with problems alone, with little in the way of help- parliamentary processes was indicated by ful advice from supranational institutions or high casualty rates among elected MPs. powerful neighbours. Issues of corruption became a focal point for the assembly of loose opposition coalitions; Conclusion: the reformist governments that took power in Solomon Islands under Francis Billy Hilly Postcolonial trends in 1993 and under Bartholomew Ulufa’alu in 1997 both tried to define themselves through After decolonisation, the new Pacific nations opposition to the “Mamaloni men”. Even in tended to experience a brief honeymoon Tonga, where the monarchy remained in period, presided over by a generation of charge, in the 1990s, ’Akilisi Pohiva and the relatively strong national leaders; Fiji’s Ratu other pro-democracy activists turned from Sir Kamisese Mara, PNG’s Michael Somare, agitation against abuses of office to radical Vanuatu’s Walter Lini, Amata Kabua in demands for a shift away from royal control Marshall Islands, Ieremai Tabai in Kiribati or over government. Only Samoa remained Nauru’s Hammer de Roburt. The late 1980s reasonably stable, as the Human Rights and 1990s saw the demise of that initial Protection Party (HRPP) saw off challenges postcolonial optimism. Fiji witnessed its first from the Tūmua and Pule movement in 1994 coup in 1987, and a year later the Bougainville and consolidated its grip on state power. civil war began in earnest. New Caledonia Does the closing of the post indepen- erupted into conflict in the mid-1980s until dence honeymoon era represent a shift to tensions were calmed by the 1988 Matignon permanent volatility, or merely a hiatus before and then 1998 Noumea Accords. Vanuatu’s some new leadership consolidation? Efforts bipolar party system began to fracture in by elites to stabilise and regiment the politi- the late 1980s, and intense government cal order have been most ambitious in PNG, instability reigned across the 1990s. For later with OLIPPAC and “grace periods”, but, as decolonisers, like Tuvalu, the watershed was we have seen, similar devices are being also later; the two elections of 1993 proved experimented with in Solomon Islands and the catalyst for an end to the early era of have been tried, unsuccessfully, in Vanuatu. stability, after which the fall of governments Samoa’s HRPP is the only political party became more frequent.17 In the Marshall across the region which has remained in Islands, it was the death of Amata Kabua office for close to a quarter of a century, con- in 1996 that ended a hitherto unipolar style solidating its control by expanding cabinet of government with no genuine opposition, size, increasing the parliamentary term to five and precipitated the opening of a period years, outlawing party switching and creating Oceania’s Political Institutions and Transitions
new sub-ministerial positions for pro-govern- 7. AV is often called instant runoff voting in ment backbenchers. Solomon Islands and the US due to this characteristic. 13 Tuvalu have sought to increase cabinet size, 8. Ratu Epeli Ganilau was not reappointed so as to render the executive more resilient as a government nominee to the Great to parliamentary challenge. Whether those Council of Chiefs in 2004 consequently efforts prove successful, whether they prove also losing his position as Chair. Ratu harbingers of emergence of more authori- Epeli Nailatikau lost his position as tarian political elites or whether the post- Speaker after the May 2006 election and independence era’s highly contested and was to become Ambassador to Malaysia, fluid styles of politics reassert their influence until the 2006 coup intervened. Both remains to be seen. men joined the post-2006 coup interim cabinet. Endnotes 9. A term coined by Fiji’s Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara (although it has other claimants), and used to convey a familiar set of 1. An earlier version of this paper was contrasts, such as relaxed timekeeping, published in Levine 2009. a preference for leisure over work 2. Based on data from the US Summer Insti- and consensus over confrontation, ute of Linguistics, Ethnologue: Languages felt to distinguish the Pacific from the of the World website,
George, see Panel on Political Change Fraenkel, J. 2006a. “The Political Conse- 14 Across Melanesia, December 2008, quences of Pacific Island Electoral Laws”, available at ANU Crawford School of in Political Parties in the Pacific Islands, Economics website,
Canberra: Australian National University Reilly, B. 2001. “The Borda Count in the Press. Real World: The Electoral System in the 15 Maclellan, N. 2005. “From Eloi to Europe: Republic of Nauru”, Discussion Paper, Interactions with the Ballot Box in University of Canterbury: Macmillan New Caledonia”, Commonwealth & Brown Centre for Pacific Studies. Comparative Politics, 43 (3): 394–418. So’o, A. and Fraenkel, J. 2005. “The Role of Mamaloni, S. 1988. 1987 Constitutional Ballot Chiefs (matai pälota and Political Review Committee Report, vol. 2. Honiara: parties in Samoa’s Shift to Universal Government Printer. Suffrage”, Commonwealth & Comparative May, R. 2008. “The 2007 Election in Papua Politics, 43 (3): 333–61. New Guinea”, SSGM Briefing Note 2008/7. Standish, B. 2000. “Papua New Guinea McCloud, A. 2002. “Where are the Women in 1999: Crisis of Governance”, Australian Simbu Politics?”, Development Bulletin, 59. Parliamentary Library Research Paper 4. Norton, R. 2004. “Seldom a transition with such Underwood, R 2006. “Micronesian Political aplomb: from confrontation to conciliation Structures and American Models: Lessons on Fiji’s path to independence”, Journal of Taught and Lesions Learned”, The Journal Pacific History, 39 (2): 163–84. of Pacific Studies 29 (1): 4–24. Panapa, P. and Fraenkel, J. 2008. “The Van Trease, H. 2005. “The Operation of the Loneliness of the Pro-Government Single Non-Transferable Vote System”, Backbencher and the Precariousness of Commonwealth & Comparative Politics, Simple Majority Rule in Tuvalu”, SSGM Discussion Paper 2008/2. 43, (3): 296–332. Premdas, R, Steeves, J. and Larmour, P. Van Trease, H. 2009. “Vanuatu’s 2008 1984. “The Western Breakaway Move- Election: Difficulties of Government ment in Solomon Islands”, Pacific Studies Formation in a Fractionalized Setting”, 7 (2): 34–67. SSGM Briefing Note 2009/1. State, Society and Governance in Melanesia (SSGM) is a program of the School of International, Political & Strategic Studies, ANU College of Asia and the Pacific, The Australian National University.
SSGM’s key objectives are to encourage scholarship on governance and state- society relations; generate dialogue throughout Melanesia and the Pacific Islands on these issues; assist in bridging policy and research. The Program’s research and outreach focuses on: • Island Melanesia—Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, New Caledonia and Fiji •The culturally-related region to the west including Papua/Irian Jaya and Timor •The countries of the Pacific Islands region to the north and east.
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