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

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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

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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. In eerie echo of the 1987 coups and exactly one general, however, the fragmentation of the year after the 1999 election, a group of Fijian vote was a major cause of the gunmen headed by a failed part-Fijian unprecedented—and largely unexpected— businessman, George Speight, burst into the

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parliament building and took the new The familiar circumstances of the May government hostage, claiming a need to 2000 coup, and the apparently recurring restore Fijian paramountcy to the political phenomenon in Fiji of extra-constitutional system. Utilising weapons apparently stolen attacks upon democratic institutions which from army depots, Speight and his deliver the ‘wrong’ result in ethnic terms, supporters—some of them members of the suggests that the latest breakdown of Fijian army’s Special Forces Unit—amassed democracy in Fiji was not just a failure of an extraordinary armory of firepower which constitutional engineering but a broader enabled them not only to overthrow the failure of political leadership, capacity and elected government violently, but also to commitment within Fiji to the idea of a multi- engineer the collapse of most of the state ethnic democracy. Nonetheless, some institutions that were central to Fiji’s return observers did see a link between the 1997 to constitutional rule—including not just the constitutional reforms and the 2000 coup— parliament and the prime ministership but and specifically, the apparently deleterious also the presidency and even key indigenous effects of the use of an alternative vote (AV) bodies such as the Great Council of Chiefs. preferential electoral system for Fiji’s 1999 Apparently robust institutions and forums elections. In a newspaper article published fell apart at the first push. By the time the at the height of the hostage crisis, Jon hostages were released and Speight and his Fraenkel claimed that supporters arrested, Fiji had returned to Speight’s attempted takeover has military rule, with the military-appointed received considerable support Prime Minister, Laisenia Qarase, announcing amongst indigenous Fijians because many felt politically marginalised yet another review of the constitution, with a under Chaudhry’s People’s new election scheduled for August 2001. Coalition government. An important part of the reason for this was the way Fiji’s Australian-style electoral The effects of the electoral system system operated at the elections in May last year (Fraenkel 2000). To most observers, the May 2000 coup in Fiji Fraenkel argued that the electoral system marked another, and possibly decisive, nail ‘manufactured’ an overly-large majority for in the coffin for hopes of a multi-ethnic and the People’s Coalition, and particularly for democratic future for the country. As in 1987, its largest party, the Fiji Labour Party. This the election of an Indo-Fijian led government, meant that Labour was able to ignore the combined with the waning influence of some needs of its indigenous Fijian allies—and traditional powerholders within indigenous thus, according to Fraenkel, making resort to ranks, provided fertile ground for extremist extra-parliamentary action more likely. In elements within the Fijian community to addition, the preferential voting system ‘gave arouse popular discord and fear. The the Fiji Labour Party key indigenous Fijian elaborate constitutional and electoral votes that it would not otherwise have been provisions recommended by the CRC— able to obtain…the transfer of these which had been partly implemented at Fiji’s preference votes were, in most cases, not a 1999 elections and had appeared to genuine expression of voters’ choices’. encourage the first tentative steps towards Overall the electoral system, he argued, genuine multi-ethnic politics—were no ‘proved extraordinarily complex, the results match for balaclava-clad men carrying remarkably ambiguous and its merits as a machine guns. History, it appeared, was tool for promoting ethnic co-operation highly repeating itself. questionable’ (Fraenkel 2000).

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While Fraenkel’s arguments were overly- a major impact of ticket voting was that it deterministic and contested by a number of pushed decisions on preference marking out other observers (see Letters to the Editor, of the hands of voters and towards party Sydney Morning Herald, 10 June 2000), he did élites. The type of cross-cultural communi- raise some important issues that highlighted cation which the preferential system was the weakness of Fiji’s 1999 electoral reforms. supposed to engender became sharply In particular, three apparently minor changes attenuated and focussed predominantly at made to the electoral system shortly prior to the level of party apparatchiks and the poll had a significant impact on the strategists, as it was ultimately the party election result, and on some of the broader leadership, not voters, who effectively phenomena that observers like Fraenkel determined where lower-order preference believed encouraged Speight’s coup. First, in votes would be directed. The introduction of imitation of Australian practice, both ticket voting thus served to remove a key registration and voting were made moderating device from the electoral compulsory for the 1999 election, meaning machinery, as individual candidates had that those who failed to vote could in theory little incentive to interact with other parties be fined—which presumably was something or to address wider groups of voters once of a spur for Fiji’s very high turnout of 90.2 preference-swapping deals had been made per cent. This provision, which was not part by party bosses. In particular, ticket voting of the CRC’s own recommendations, served to undermine the incentives for appeared to have a clear partisan impact: the preference-swapping at the candidate level, victorious Fiji Labour Party, for example, as deals struck in advance at a national level managed to more than double its 1994 vote. formed the basis of most vote transfer Second, and consistent with mandatory arrangements. In effect, the ‘ticket vote’ voting, the expression of preferences on the option meant that electoral competition, for ballot paper was also made compulsory, the most part, largely took place between meaning that voters had to number at least rival ‘élite cartels’ and hence that the AV three-quarters of all names on their ballot or system as a mechanism for genuine local have their vote declared invalid. Finally, and level inter-ethnic accommodation was found probably as a result of the uncertain effects wanting. of compulsory preference marking, a ‘ticket’ The deleterious impact of ticket voting voting option, as per the Australian Senate, was exacerbated by the way electoral was included on each ballot paper. This districts were drawn, ensuring that allowed voters to forego the task of manually opportunities for genuine inter-ethnic ranking all candidates on the ballot. With cooperation at the constituency level were one tick voters could accept their favoured rare. Because only the 25 open electorates party’s full ordering of preference enabled multi-ethnic competition, and of distribution amongst all candidates these no more than eight were reasonably standing, from a list which had previously balanced in their mixture of indigenous Fijian been lodged with the electoral authorities. and Indo-Fijian voters, the vast majority of The ‘ticket vote’ option was exercised by electorate-level contests provided no around 95 per cent of all voters, and had a opportunity at all for cross-ethnic campaigns, marked effect on the eventual election appeals or outcomes. Some estimates suggest outcome and on the capacity of the electoral that only six seats were genuinely system to encourage inter-ethnic accommod- competitive between ethnic groups, as the ation. Because electors were encouraged to heterogeneous electoral districts required to accept a party’s pre-set preference ordering, make cross-ethnic transfers an optimal

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strategy for electoral success did not in fact transfers from three largely Fijian-backed exist in most cases (Roberts 1999). The CRC’s parties that gave Labour its absolute majority. recommendation for a ‘good’ proportion of However, much of this vote-transfer activity members of both major communities in all came as a result of the sometimes bizarre open seats was interpreted extremely loosely, ticket voting agreements made by party to mean ethnic balances of up to 90:10 in leaders. In some seats, for reasons best some cases, which obviated the need for intra- known to the respective party leaders, a ticket communal vote swapping. In most seats, vote for one party actually counted as a first clear Indian or Fijian majorities prevailed. preference vote for a candidate from another Given this, it is perhaps not surprising that party (Roberts 1999:6). In others—such as the relatively little cross-ethnic vote-trading case of FLP directing their preferences away actually occurred in most electorates. As one from their main rival for Indian votes, the report noted, ‘Fiji’s new electoral system NFP, and towards nationalist Fijian parties remains heavily skewed along racial lines, like the VLV—the strategic considerations of even after the constitutional review. It took party leaders which led to such ‘deals with nearly twice as many voters to elect a Member the devil’ would clearly not have been of Parliament in an open [that is, multi-racial] replicated by most ordinary voters. Most seat as in a communal seat…the electoral Indo-Fijians who voted for the FLP would system was heavily weighted against open probably have passed their preference vote seats’ (Fraenkel 1999:44). on to an allied party like the NFP if they did Nonetheless, largely as a result of the not have the ticket vote option. In fact the inter-élite deals on the direction of preferences NFP, which won 14.8 per cent of the votes from ticket voting, votes did transfer across but no parliamentary seats, appeared to be a group lines in a surprisingly large number clear victim of the ticket voting system. This, of cases. Preferences were distributed in a and the over-representation of the victorious majority (36) of the 71 constituencies, and FLP, led to an extremely disproportional resulted in a candidate who was not leading electoral outcome, with more than double the on first preferences winning in 16 of these— level of disproportionality of AV elections in which, at 22 per cent of all seats, represents Australia. The effect of this was not so much the highest rate of preferences changing of under-representing minorities as of wiping outcomes of any AV election in any country out some of the majority parties. The SVT, for to date. In five of these cases, seats were won example, obtained the largest share of the on preferences by candidates from the ethnic Fijian vote, 38 per cent, but gained minority ethnic community in the only 8 parliamentary seats, while the NFP constituency—which suggests a significant did even worse, winning no seats at all degree of cross-ethnic voting. The big losers despite gaining 32 per cent of the Indo-Fijian of the 1999 election, for example, the Indo- vote. Fijian NFP and the indigenous Fijian SVT, Such a level of disproportionality clearly lost most of their seats in communal undermined prospects for an accommodative districts—defeat that cannot be attributed to outcome in Fiji. Combined with the bizarre inter-ethnic accommodation or lack thereof, impacts of ticket voting, it points to some although Fraenkel (2000) claims that ‘both serious deficiencies in the Fijian electoral parties were defeated because of their model which served to negate some of the willingness to compromise with the other’. beneficial impacts of the CRC’s original By contrast, the Fiji Labour Party—a proposals. First, the drawbacks of the ticket consciously multi-racial party – gained more voting option in terms of moving the power seats from AV than it lost, and in fact it was of decision-making away from ordinary

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voters and towards more calculating party Recommendations for the future élites clearly undermined the intention of vote-pooling. Analyses of the elections If the Pandora’s Box of electoral reform is to featured numerous accounts of how ordinary be opened again in the future in Fiji, as seems voters did not understand the direction in inevitable, one clear conclusion is that, while which their preferences were heading under the multi-ethnic incentives of a preferential the ticket vote arrangements.1 Overall, the ballot should be retained, a more way in which ticket voting served to skew proportional system which enables the the election results clearly outweighed any drawing of larger and more ethnically- benefits in terms of simplicity it may have heterogeneous electoral districts should be provided. In addition, the parliament’s considered. In particular, a system like the decision to adopt single-member electorates, Single Transferable Vote (STV), which rather than the multi-member seats combines preference voting with recommended by the CRC, meant that it proportional representation and multi- proved almost impossible to draw electoral member electorates, deserves serious constituencies that were ethnically consideration—as I and a number of other heterogeneous—a key facilitating condition observers prior to the 1999 election were in for vote-pooling. And, as most seats remained fact suggesting (see Reilly 1997; Arms 1997). communal contests anyway, the CRC’s The benefits of STV is that it delivers much proposals were, in effect, never properly put more proportional results than AV, while still to the test. enabling the transfer of preferences between Despite the drawbacks of the electoral parties that can help push Fiji in the direction system as implemented, it is clear that the of multi-ethnic politics. The application of introduction of preferential voting did play STV in small (3 or 5 member) districts can a modest but important role in breaking old also serve to promote the interests of the habits of mono-ethnic politics in Fiji, ‘moderate middle’, as was the case in facilitating cross-ethnic bargaining, and Northern Ireland’s crucial 1998 ‘Good helping to build new routines of inter-ethnic Friday’ agreement elections, where voters on negotiation and cooperation. In particular, both sides of the communal divide were able the opportunities for inter-ethnic bargaining to direct their lower-order preference votes that the new rules provided were both eagerly towards centrist, moderate and multi-ethnic exploited and adapted by élites from both parties—a phenomenon that greatly communities and, in combination with the bolstered the ‘pro-peace’ forces (Reilly 2001). expectations of places at the power-sharing Interestingly, an earlier commission of cabinet table, served to significantly cool the inquiry into Fiji’s electoral system in 1975, rhetoric of the campaign. Indeed, one of the chaired by Professor Harry Street, came to a most striking aspects of the election was how, similar conclusion. The Street Commission, in marked contrast to previous election as it was known, recommended a series of campaigns which concentrated on racial reforms, based on the same implicit thinking issues, the 1999 campaign was strongly as the CRC, to the electoral provisions of Fiji’s focused on ‘bread and butter’ issues such as 1970 independence Constitution. It argued the economy, rather than ethnic ones (Lal that Fiji needed an electoral system ‘which 1999). Whether this marked anything more is fair and equitable, and which at the same than a temporary aberration in Fiji’s time does not encourage or perpetuate unfolding cycle of intermittent democratic communal thinking or communal politics’. elections followed by anti-democratic coups Its conclusion was that the Fijian parliament remains to be seen. should comprise a mixture of communal and

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open seats, with 25 members elected in open References competition from five multi-member constituencies using STV, and 28 members Arms, D.G., 1997. ‘Fiji’s proposed new elected from communal rolls in single- voting system: a critique with counter- member constituencies using AV (Parliament proposals’, in B.V. Lal and P. Larmour of Fiji 1975:12–16). (eds), Electoral Systems in Divided It is important that any future electoral Societies, National Centre for reforms in Fiji learn from such historical Development Studies, The Australian National University, Canberra:97–134. recommendations, and from cases like Northern Ireland. But there is no need to Constitution Review Commission, 1996. throw out the baby with the bathwater. To The Fiji Islands: towards a united future, Parliamentary paper No. 34 of 1996, lurch back to a first-past-the-post system, Parliament of Fiji, Suva. as some have suggested, would solve none Court of Appeal, Fiji Islands, 2001. Republic of the problems identified at the 1999 of Fiji Islands and Attorney General v elections, and would almost certainly add Prasad: Judgement of the Court, Suva. a number of new ones. As Fiji’s highest court Fraenkel, J.M., 1999. ‘Why it happened the pointed out in March 2001, had the 1999 way it did’, The Review, June. elections been held under a first-past-the- post system, ‘the People’s Coalition would ——, 2000. ‘Fiddling with democracy fails’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 8 June. still have won 45 seats, giving it a comfortable majority’, and even under Lal, B.V., 1999. A Time to Change: The Fiji General Elections of 1999, Discussion proportional representation they would still Paper 23, Department of Political and have won a clear election victory (Court of Social Change, The Australian National Appeal, Fiji Islands 2001:12) Such evidence University, Canberra. undermines arguments that the 1999 result Parliament of Fiji, 1975. Report of the Royal was somehow the result of a faulty electoral Commission Appointed for the Purpose of system. But Fiji’s electoral law does need Considering and Making Recommendations improving, and there is a clear case for as to the Most Appropriate Method of building a simpler and more proportional Electing Members to, and Representing the form of preferential system. The best way to People of Fiji in, the House of achieve this is by a balanced assessment of Representatives, Parliamentary Paper what elements of the new electoral system No. 24, Government Printer, Suva. worked as intended, and what did not. I Reilly, B., 1997. ‘Constitutional engineering hope that this paper has set out some and the alternative vote in Fiji’, in B.V. signposts for the road ahead. Lal and P. Larmour (eds), Electoral Systems in Divided Societies, National Centre for Development Studies, The Notes Australian National University, Canberra:73–96. 1 The following account is typical: ‘In hindsight, ——, 2001. Democracy in Divided Societies: many Fijian voters are wishing they had electoral engineering for conflict familiarised themselves more with the management, Cambridge University preferential system. More so when they Press, Cambridge. voted above the line. If I knew VLV gave first preference to the Labour candidate in Roberts, N., 1999. ‘Living Up To my open constituency, I would have voted Expectations? The New Fijian Electoral for the SVT,’ says a VLV supporter ruefully. System and the 1999 General Election’, There are many like him’ (see ‘How Fijians paper presented to Citizens dumped Rabuka’, The Review, June 1999:40). Constitutional Forum, Suva.

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