It is all very well for the Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and his New Zealand counterpart Helen Clark to assert that the conduct of the interim Fijian Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama is unacceptable.
It is all very well for them to call for a return to a parliamentary democracy. However, one must ask: What sort of Parliamentary democracy?
Bainimarama has been painted as a typical military strongman who it took power from democratically elected leaders and has installed himself as a perpetual dictator abusing human rights and generally behaving as an anathema to the civilised world.
That is a vast simplification. Sure, he seized power and has done some silly things like expelling journalists and questioning and detaining people in a way contrary to normal principles of freedom of speech and freedom from arbitrary arrest. But he has not engaged in the sort of a systematic violence that is the hallmark of most military dictatorships.
Moreover, he has set up a people’s charter process with aims that are far more democratic and fair than the conduct of the government he overthrew and the Constitution it was elected under.
Yes, it is unacceptable for Fiji to be run by a military dictatorship. Yes, it should return to democracy as quickly as possible. However, Rudd, Clark, and the rest of the Pacific Forum leaders have insisted on elections of next year and based on the 1997 constitution.
This is what is unacceptable. The 1997 constitution is a racist document. It entrenches and control over land in the hands of native Fijians. It is fine for Rudd and Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith to talk about parliamentary democracy. They live in a country where the Constitution provides one vote one value and a direct election by the people as a whole of the members of the House of Representatives.
The 1997 Fiji Constitution has no such guarantees. It provides for a 71-member House of Representatives, only 25 of whom are elected directly by the people as a whole. The other 46 are elected by electors according to race. Twenty three are elected by electors on the Fijian voting role and another one elected by another Pacific island group; 19 are elected by electors on the Indian role and three are elected by the rest.
In short, the system is rigged to provide a permanent majority of native Fijians in the lower house. This would be irrespective of their proportion of the population. It encourages race-based politics in which voters are seen by ethnicity first and merit second.
It gets worse. The Constitution also provides for a Senate — totally appointed. Fourteen of its members come from the hereditary Council of Chiefs (all native Fijian); nine are appointed by the Prime Minister (who would be a native Fijian appointing native Fijians); eight appointed by the leader of the opposition; and one other Pacific Islander.
The Fiji Senate does not have the same powers as the Australian Senate. It cannot reject money bills and the Prime Minister can fast track urgent legislation through it. However, it has an overriding and extraordinary power over half a dozen pieces of legislation which entrench native Fijian land rights and other preferential treatment. These pieces of legislation can only be amended with the approval of the Senate and the approval of nine of the 14 Council of Chiefs senators.
It is legally and constitutionally entrenched racism. A society in which people are not equal before the law, where people are denied access to land, and where people are treated as second-class citizens, it is bound to affect the economy. This is precisely what has happened in Fiji. After the adoption of the 1997 Constitution, Indian Fijians saw the writing on the wall and thousands of voted with their feet. Many of the best professionals and business people left.
The percentage of Indian Fijians fell from 44 percent to 37 percent. More would have left if they could.
Bear in mind, it was the increase of the Indian Fijian population to a point where majority was likely that led to the first Fijian coup in 1987. The exodus of the best and brightest Indian Fijians began then.
Two subsequent coups were basically inspired by native Fijian interests fearful of increased Fijian Indian influence. The fourth coup, that of Frank Bainimarama, ran in the opposite direction. Bainimarama warned the civilian government in 2006 that the Army objected to racist legislation that would have given even further land rights to native Fijians and further discriminated against Indian Fijians. This is despite Bainimarama being a native Fijian. The Army also objected to the possibility of the partnering of the perpetrators of a previous coup. It is thought that would only encourage a coup culture and undermine the rule of law.
After the first three coups, Indian Fijians despaired of getting equal treatment in their own country and despaired of ever getting the Fijian economy into a state where it is people could prosper. In the months after the 2006 coup, however, Indian Fijians saw some possibilities for their position in the country.
Bainimarama set out his goals for a society in which race did not play a part in political preferment; where citizens were treated equally; where citizens had an equal economic opportunity. Bainimarama promised an early return to civilian rule but under a Constitution with a fair electoral system.
He saw that Fiji could never prosper if race was to be the overarching political force and if institutions providing for clean and good government could not be put in place.
The tragedy for Fiji is that he did not get on with the task quickly enough and that he was pressured last year into promising an election next year apparently under the 1997 Constitution. That would have shattered the aspirations behind his coup. Worse, he fell victim to the old adage about power corrupting. He refused to accept any criticism, clamping down on his critics with arrests and deportations. Further, the process of drawing a new constitution has become bogged down. Indian Fijians are despairing.
But if the Pacific Forum (most of whose leaders would have sympathy with native Fijians) gets its way, Fiji is doomed to race politics and consequent economic stagnation. The same will happen if a parallel process through the Commonwealth of Nations insists on the 1997 Constitution (in the face of the Commonwealth’s decades-long opposition to racist political systems when dealing with South Africa).
Just remember when you hear your political leaders standing up for “democracy” in the face of military strongman, that events are a little more complicated than that.