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Evaluating the Effect of the Electoral System in Post-Coup Fiji

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Evaluating the Effect of the Electoral System in Post-Coup Fiji PACIFIC ECONOMIC BULLETIN Policy dialogue Fiji electoral dialogue Evaluating the effect of the electoral system in post-coup Fiji Benjamin Reilly National Centre for Development Studies, The Australian National University In 1997, Fiji’s Constitution Review AV is a type of majority electoral system, Commission (CRC) produced a voluminous which requires electors to rank candidates proposal for constitutional reform, The Fiji in the order of their choice, by marking a ‘1’ Islands: Towards a United Future, which for their favoured candidate, ‘2’ for their recommended that Fiji move ‘gradually but second choice, ‘3’ for their third choice, and decisively’ away from communalism so on. The system thus enables voters to towards a free, open and multi-ethnic express their preferences between political system. Acknowledging that candidates, rather than simply their first political parties in many ethnically-divided choice. Any candidate with an absolute societies tend to be based around particular majority (that is, more than 50 per cent) of ethnic groups, the Commission’s stated first preferences is immediately declared objective was ‘to find ways of encouraging elected. However, if no candidate has an all, or a sufficient number, of them to come absolute majority of first-preferences, the together for the purpose of governing the candidate with the lowest number of first country in a way that gives all communities preference votes is eliminated and his or her an opportunity to take part’ (Constitution ballot papers redistributed to remaining Review Commission 1996:308). They viewed candidates according to the lower-order the electoral system as the most powerful tool preferences marked. This process of by which the nature of Fijian politics could sequential elimination and transfer of votes be influenced and engineered. After continues until a majority winner emerges. assessing and evaluating most major The CRC argued that politicians and electoral systems against criteria such as the political parties were the key actors in the capacity to encourage multi-ethnic political system, and would respond government; recognition of the importance rationally to incentives or restraints imposed of political parties; incentives for moderation by the electoral system. Under an AV system, and co-operation across ethnic lines; and as long as constituencies were ethnically effective representation of constituents, they heterogeneous and there was a number of recommended the adoption of a preferential political parties contesting the elections, alternative vote (AV) electoral system for all politicians and parties would need to attract future elections in Fiji (Constitution Review the second or third preference votes of voters Commission 1996:304). from another ethnic group to maximise their 142 Pacific Economic Bulletin Volume 16 Number 1 May 2001 © Asia Pacific Press PACIFIC ECONOMIC BULLETIN Policy dialogue chances of electoral success. Candidates who governing Soqosoqo ni Vakavulewa ni Taukei adopted moderate positions on ethnic issues (SVT), the National Federation Party (NFP), and attempted to represent the ‘middle and the United General Party (UGP). Each of ground’ would, under this logic, be more these parties had a clear ethnic base: the SVT successful than extremists. By making with indigenous Fijians, the NFP with Indo- politicians from one group reliant on votes Fijians, and the UGP with general electors. from the other group for their electoral The alternative coalition group was headed success, AV could, the Commissioners by the multi-ethnic but Indian-backed Fiji argued, encourage a degree of ‘preference Labour Party (FLP)—whose election to swapping’ between groups which could help government in 1987 had been the catalyst to encourage accommodation between (and for the coup—but also included hard-line within) Fiji’s divided Indian and indigenous Fijian parties such as the Party of National Fijian communities. These incentives for Unity (PANU) and the Fijian Association election would thus work to move Fijian Party (FAP). Known as the ‘People’s politics away from the extremes towards a Coalition’, this alliance was headed by the more moderate, centrist, multi-racial Indo-Fijian leader of the FLP, former trade competition for power. union boss Mahendra Chaudhry. The parties in this alliance formed only a loose coalition, and stood multiple candidates in several Fiji’s 1999 elections seats, while the SVT-led group formed a more conventional binding pre-election coalition, How did this unusual constitutional designating an agreed first-choice candidate architecture work in practice? Fiji’s 1999 in each constituency. But the trend was clear: parliamentary election, the first held under for the first time in Fiji’s history, cross-ethnic the new dispensation, provided an politics began to emerge. Coalition opportunity to put the new system to a possibilities created new bargaining arenas practical test. Early signs were encouraging and brought together former adversaries for the advocates of constitutional reform. from across the ethnic divide, encouraging Apparently in reaction to the new incentives ‘understanding and cross-cultural friendship for cross-communal vote-pooling and among candidates facing each other in the cooperation in the reformed electoral system, election’ (Lal 1999:6). even before campaigning began parts of Fiji’s The election campaign was the first in previously settled party system began to Fiji’s history not to be dominated by the change. In a move that would have been issues of race. The campaign, according to unthinkable just a few years earlier, political Lal, was parties from both sides of the ethnic divide …the most relaxed in living came together to make early pre-election memory. Trading preferences with alliances, with the result that the election was other parties dampened what effectively fought between two large multi- would have been a fiery campaign. ethnic coalitions rather than the For once, race was relegated to the predominantly mono-ethnic parties of background because both previous years. Parties representing the three coalitions were multiracial (Lal official ethnic groups—indigenous Fijians, 1999:5). Indo-Fijians and ‘General’ electors—formed However, many of the preference swapping the core of both coalitions. The former, under arrangements struck between parties were the leadership of the 1987 coup-master, motivated primarily by political expediency Sitiveni Rabuka, was built around the and rational calculations, rather than on the 143 Pacific Economic Bulletin Volume 16 Number 1 May 2001 © Asia Pacific Press PACIFIC ECONOMIC BULLETIN Policy dialogue basis of shared visions or aligned interests. landslide victory for the People’s Coalition. In 22 seats, for example, the FLP directed its The mainstay of the Coalition, the Indo-Fijian preferences to the traditionalist and ultra- backed FLP, gained a majority in its own right, nationalist Veitokani Ni Lewenivanua Vakaristo enabling Mahendra Chaudhry to thus (VLV), a party whose interests ran counter to become Fiji’s first ever Indo-Fijian prime that of most Indo-Fijians. The main minister. The FLP was the only party to gain alternative to the FLP for most Indo-Fijians, a good spread of votes in both rural and the NFP, placed the VLV last on their urban seats, and in both open and communal preference orderings as a matter of ‘principle constituencies, although it was a poor and morality’. In the end, however, the FLP performer in the Fijian communal seats. It chose expediency. fielded several indigenous Fijian candidates For Labour … the election was not and ran largely on a multi-ethnic, class- about principle and morality: it based platform. Nonetheless, the People’s was about winning. To that end, it Coalition was viewed by many indigenous put those parties last which posed Fijians as Indo-Fijian dominated, despite the the greatest threat. Among these new cabinet comprising representatives of parties was the NFP, its main rival the three People’s Coalition partners and the in the Indian communal seats. VLV. In total, eight parties and three Labour’s unorthodox tactic breached the spirit and intention of independents gained seats in parliament. the preferential system of voting, The former governing party, the SVT, which where like-minded parties trade could have taken up its mandated seats in preferences among themselves and cabinet under the Constitution’s ‘grand put those they disagree most with coalition’ provisions, elected to move to the last. Political expediency and cold- opposition benches. While the SVT lost blooded ruthlessness triumphed heavily—winning just 8 seats—its Indo- (Lal 1999:20). Fijian ally, the NFP, did even worse, not At the election, preferences were winning a single seat. The new government distributed in 50.7 per cent of the country’s thus entered office with a massive and 71 constituencies—a high level by unforseen parliamentary majority, while the comparison with Australian and Papua New opposition parties were reduced to a small Guinean examples—although all contests in rump group. the Indian and Rotuman communal seats A transfer of power across not only party were won outright. Moreover, in five of the but also ethnic lines was a new experience open seats and nine of the Fijian communal for Fiji, and constituted a major test of the seats, the leader on first preferences lost as a new institutional arrangements and of the result of preference distribution. One effect country’s political maturity. But it was not to of this was to channel votes not so much last. Popular discontent on the part of many across the ethnic divide, but from more indigenous Fijians at the presence of an Indo- extreme to more moderate ethnic parties. The Fijian Prime Minister continued to simmer, militant Fijian Nationalist Party, for example, and Prime Minister Chaudhry’s sometimes distributed most of its lower order outspoken advocacy of Indo-Fijian rights preferences towards more moderate Fijian served to deepen mistrust over key issues parties such as SVT, despite the latter’s such as land ownership. In May 2000, in an coalition arrangement with the NFP.
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