An Australian academic says the stability of Fiji's new democracy will still depend on military support, like every brand of leadership since 1987.
Transcript
An Australian academic says the stability of Fiji's new democracy will still depend on military support, like every brand of leadership since 1987.
Dr Scott MacWilliam, a visiting fellow at the Australian National University, says the international community "totally underestimated" the political clout of the military and Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama in the lead-up to this year's election.
He told Alex Perrottet the new government should now be comfortable in responding positively to wider civil society and opposition demands.
SCOTT MACWILLIAM: At least since 1987 all the democratic advances there have had military power as a central component of the sort of democracy Fiji gets. In 1999 there was a tremendous amount of triumphalism about the election that was held there and it was a part of a return to democracy when the Labour Party and the People's Coalition won. I made the point then that it was a fairly shallow one because the extent to which Chaudhry held power was very dependent on the support he got from the military. And the military and the police were constantly present, backing his government and when they abandoned him or when he lost their support by the end of 1999 he was in an extremely vulnerable position as the events of May 2000 showed. The same applied to Qarase in 2001, much was made of his electoral victory in the elections in what was supposed to be another return to democracy. In fact it wasn't as uncertain as it might have appeared in the sense of winning the election, because the army had said, Commodore Bainimarama had said before the election that only Qarase would be acceptable and that was a position backed by Australia and New Zealand, there would be no return to the government that was led by Chaudhry, it would only be Qarase, it would only be an i-Taukei, an ethnic Fijian leading it and it was a military backed government. They did win an election but they won an election when it was known to all the voters that the only possible government that the military would accept would be Qarase and the SDL. So it's always been to me that the Fiji military was an under-pinning of whatever democratic return might take place.
ALEX PERROTTET: And so now with this election in 2014 was it a similar fait accompli in your opinion because the military obviously are going to be onside. That he's [Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama] close to Mosese Tikoitoga of course and installed him as his replacement. But of course there was a lot of international observation as well who said that 'yes this was a very free and fair election' perhaps the polling day specifics were free and fair but are you saying that the lead up to the election certainly wasn't.
SM: Well no, it's deeper than that, certainly it was an election held on the terms that were constructed by the military, the 2013 constitution in its changing the electoral laws and so forth drew the odds on its side. The constitution of 2013 much more directly captures what's happening in Fiji's political economy. For instance the move from the highly malapportioned electoral system under the 97' constitution, you probably know that the electorates were very heavily weighted to rural areas. A rural vote for the 99' election and subsequently, was worth up to five to seven times an urban vote. One person, one vote, one value as there now is changes the dynamics along the lines of Fiji's demography. Fiji is a very urbanising country, the official figures are, in excess of 50 percent of the population lives in the main urban areas so the constitutional electoral change is in line with what is happening in Fiji's wider demography. So I'm not saying the election was rigged, I'm not saying the election was badly held, in fact I thought the election was exceptional in the sort of terms in which it was conducted if you like but I do think that the 2013 constitution and the electoral form that occurred was very heavily weighted in favour of Fiji First.
AP: Recently at the United Nations Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum was saying that the 2013 constitution reflects the will of the people. Do you think that's a little cynical given the way that that was passed through. How do you read the government's presentation to the UN in the last week about the constitution being the 'will of the people'.
SM: I think it's a standard practice for people who design constitutions to say 'these reflect the will of the people'. The Australian constitution did not reflect the will of the people. It was a relatively small group of upper-class males who put together the Australian constitution. The Fiji constitution of 2013 is almost exactly the same so it's neither better nor worse than almost every constitution I know. Certainly the Ghai [Professor Yash Ghai] constitution in its attempts to for instance bring the GCC back, to incorporate NGOs and so forth might be seen as more popular democratic but what it also did was raise the danger that power in Fiji would be split up and there wouldn't be a government in a strong position. So 'will of the people' is a slogan in my eyes and the 2013 constitution is similarly one that was put together by a small number of people and designed to produce more or less the outcome that occurred.
AP: The stability factor in this current government you would think is stronger than what we've seen in the past decades.
SM: Well I think so and I think that the continued close tie between the government and the military is the key to that. I'm hopeful and one of the things that really struck me, I was in Fiji three times in 2014 and what struck me was how much more confident Bainimarama became over the course of the year. A couple of his TV performances and so forth suggested a man completely relaxed. If he stays relaxed if you like, is it going to mean a lessening of the sort opposition, they'll understand that some of the civil rights demands and so forth can easily be incorporated, can easily be dealt with without it actually threatening the government's position.
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