from w
Wadan Narsey analyses the recent Fiji election and this is what he has to say:
September 27, 2014
Pacific
Scoop:
Opinion – By Professor Wadan Narsey
There
can be little doubt that Voreqe Bainimarama, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum and a cabal of
secret advisers on decrees, electoral systems, budgets, elections manifesto and
spin doctors have waged a brilliant and highly
successful campaign – for at least three years – prior to winning this 2014
General Election.
The
chairman of the subservient Electoral Commission (Chen Bunn Young), as
expected, pronounced the September 2014 Elections as “free and fair”.
But the knowledgeable
Multinational Observer Group (MOG), in Fiji to largely observe the “casting and
counting of votes”, stated only that the election results “broadly represented
the will of the people” (barring any proof of substantial irregularities
alleged by some political parties).
The good governance
organisations know too well that elections are far more than just the “casting
and counting” of votes, especially in a Fiji where draconian military decrees
and total media control have restricted and shaped public opinion over the last
eight years.
Books will now be written
about this second Fiji case study (the first being Rabuka) on how a military commander,
treasonously deposed a lawfully elected government, and managed to become
legitimised as an elected Prime Minister, solemnly swearing oaths of allegiance
he had not kept before in 2006 and 2009.
There are two extreme
interpretations of this metamorphosis, with the truth perhaps somewhere in
between.
At one
extreme is Graham Davis’ euphoric and populist interpretation of the Bainimarama journey as
a glorious revolution and an unparalleled triumph of leadership creating a
modern Fiji of equal citizenry published on his blog Grubsheet.
(Graham Davis previously declared his interest that he is employed by US
lobbying company Qorvis which has been hired by the Bainimarama government to
improve its public image).
At the other extreme is the
dark underbelly of the Bainimarama “revolution” that civil society
organisations and opposition parties have struggled against for the last eight
years.
With society failing to
draw any kind of a line at a long series of seemingly small restrictions on
their basic freedoms, Bainimarama’s step by step systemic imposition of
military decrees and media policies, unfettered and unopposed, eventually
accumulated into the all-powerful propaganda machine that handed him a
landslide electoral victory, easily hailed as “the people have spoken”.
These astute steps include
Bainimarama’s rejection a full two years ago, of the Draft Constitution
formulated by Bainimarama’s own Yash Ghai Commission, the unilateral imposition
of their own constitution giving themselves immunity, their total control and
censorship of the media, their control of the Electoral Commission, the
Supervisor of Elections, MIDA, their restrictions on NGOs for voter education
and elections monitoring, their last minute vote-buying manifesto release, the
shady role of the business houses, all accompanied by the thunderous silence of
the good people of Fiji.
Without all these systemic
biases, the Fiji First Party margin of victory might be significantly reduced,
or even become negative.
Why
reject the Ghai Draft?
Bainimarama’s election strategy finally
clarified some important reasons for his rejection of the Ghai Draft
Constitution despite it granting full immunity to all the coup collaborators.
First, the Ghai Draft
electoral system had four constituencies (the divisions), apparently a trivial
difference, but it would have limited Bainimarama to appear on the ballot paper
for only one constituency and hence strictly limited his personal vote appeal.
All other FFP candidates on the other three constituencies would have had to
struggle for votes against other competitors, instead of riding on
Bainimarama’s coat-tails.
Second, the Bainimarama
government would have had to resign six months before the election. This would
have prevented Bainimarama and his ministers from using taxpayers funds and
donor funded projects, right up to polling day, in blatant and very successful
vote buying.
Third, Bainimarama would
not have had the complete control over the media through their restrictive
media decrees (including the Media Industry Development Authority – MIDA) to
obtain maximum political mileage for themselves, while criticising and
ruthlessly suppressing opposition parties.
Fourth, to obtain immunity,
Bainimarama and his coup collaborators would have had to express remorse for
specific actions for which they wanted immunity, with clearly negative
consequence for their image with voters.
Last, under the Ghai Draft,
and perhaps less important, the Bainimarama government would not have had the
total control over the Electoral Commission, the Elections Office, and MIDA, as
they did.
The
electoral system
Bainimarama’s electoral system and constitution
were not discussed or approved by the other political parties, and the
electoral system in hindsight seems designed specifically to suit Bainimarama’s
planned elections strategy.
Despite political parties’
recommendations for local constituencies (so that local communities could elect
their “own” Member of Parliament to represent their local interests),
Bainimarama insisted on one national constituency, with each voter voting for
just one candidate (as was the FFP strategy).
While the electoral system
has the advantage of proportionality (which also benefited NFP in Parliament
for the first time), it imposed the 5 percent threshold rule which eliminated
small parties and Independents, unduly harsh, given that each parliamentarian
roughly represents 2 percent of the votes. Their lost equivalent of 4 seats
went to the largest parties in proportion (if you took away 3 seats from FFP
they would be left with 29).
Candidates were rejected
with large numbers of votes, while many with fewer votes, but belonging to
larger parties, have been elected making a mockery of the years of relentless
propaganda “1 person = 1 vote = 1 value”. But that applied to most candidates,
not just to FFP
The
manipulated ballot paper and candidates list
The pliant Elections Office and Electoral Commission then enforced the
outrageous Electoral Decree requirement that the ballot paper only have numbers
(all 248 of them), with no names, no photos and no party symbols which could
have helped illiterate voters identify the candidate of their choice.
The Electoral Commission
and Elections Office refused to accede to requests that the ballot paper could
still group the candidate numbers together under their party symbol (with their
names and photos) so that even if voters ticked an adjacent number by mistake,
the vote would still go to their chosen party.
The Electoral Decree
unreasonably banned the voters from taking any material (such as voting cards)
into the polling booth, which could have assisted illiterate voters to tick the
number they wanted.
The pliant Electoral
Commission went along with the Candidates List in which candidates were all
deliberately mixed up randomly, with no party grouping or party symbols.
This clearly worked against
the interests of opposition parties who took seriously the task of supporting
all their candidates and numbers, not just the party leader.
The FFP strategy of asking
voters to vote for just the one number representing Bainimarama, resulted in
him receiving a massive number of votes, which dragged into Parliament a large
number of his colleagues, some with minimal votes. [This was the “democratic”
electoral system that electoral missionary and foreigner David Arms, also a
member of the Electoral Commission, fought tooth and nail to impose on Fiji’s political
parties and voters].
The proud boasts of the
Elections Office about the record low percentage of invalid votes are hollow,
given that with the existing ballot paper, no one can find out if there were
“invalid votes” caused by voters wrongly ticking a number which was not of
their intended candidate.
A “perverse proof” is that
a relatively unknown candidate, Ilaijia Tavia, received the highest votes of
all the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) candidates, because many voters
probably confused his number (297) with that of Bainimarama (279).
Bainimarama’s Electoral
Decree also banned “exit polls”, which are a regular part of democratic
elections, useful the world over as a check against the rigging of the counting
process.
It is abundantly clear now
that the entire electoral system and electoral decree was cunningly designed to
suit the Bainimarama campaign for voters to remember only one number (279)
while ignoring all other candidates.
The Elections Office and
the media have dutifully played along with the game by comparing Bainimarama’s
personal vote with that of Ro Temumu Kepa and Professor Biman Prasad, totally
ignoring that opposition parties’ elections strategies gave broad exposure to
all the candidates, and not just the party leader as did the FFP.
The
pliant election authorities
By decree, the Bainimarama government ensured
that the ultimate authority over the elections, the Minister of Elections was
their own Attorney-General (Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum) also unashamedly the
secretary-general of Fiji First Party.
They appointed their own
Supervisor of Elections, as well as their own choice of Electoral Commission
members, and the Media Industry Development Authority chairman, most being open
or closet Bainimarama sympathisers.
Academics will no doubt try
to clarify exactly how much effort the Supervisor of Elections, the Electoral
Commission and the MIDA chairman put in, to try and make the elections
genuinely “free and fair”, despite the restrictive Electoral Decree and other
media laws.
What the public did see was
that while the Elections Office spent millions encouraging the voter
registration of Fiji citizens living overseas to have a say in electing some
candidate for the Fiji Parliament, a last-minute Bainimarama Decree unfairly
disqualified some opposition party candidates because they had been overseas
for more than 18 months out of the last two years, some for legitimate reasons
such as higher education. Did the Electoral Commission protest?
Then when the Electoral
Commission issued a ruling that a FLP candidate was eligible to stand for
elections (because he did not have a conviction as previously claimed) and a
FFP candidate was ineligible to stand because he was facing a criminal charge
of causing death by dangerous driving, the Supervisor of Elections refused to
abide by the ruling.
The technical justification
was that the ruling had been received by the Elections Office a few hours after
the due time, duly backed up by the courts who adjudicated the case by defining
what was mean strictly by “three days”, not what “natural justice” and common
sense required. Did the Electoral Commission protest?
Early in the campaign,
scholarship authorities under the control of the Bainimarama regime terminated
the scholarship of one of the party workers of young Independent candidate
Roshika Deo, on totally ridiculous grounds.
While the scholarship was
eventually reinstated after a public outcry and much buck-passing between the
USP management and scholarship authorities, the message was given to young
votersn- don’t support the opponents of the Bainimarama regime, if you want your
scholarships to continue. Did the Electoral Commission protest?
The
restricted education of voters
Months before polling day, the Bainimarama Regime warned NGOs that under
Section 115 (1) of the Electoral Decree “it shall be unlawful for any person,
entity or organisation .. that receives any funding or assistance from a
foreign government, inter-governmental or non-governmental organisation or
multilateral agency to engage in, participate in or conduct any campaign
(including organising debates, public forum, meetings, interviews, panel
discussions, or publishing any material) that is related to the election or any
election issue or matter.”
Totally against the spirit
of free and fair elections, organisations like Citizen’s Constitution Forum
(CCF), Fiji Women’s Rights Movement (FWRM), Women’s Crisis Centre (WCC), and
other NGOs were banned from all such educational activities, which is the norm
in democratic societies, and indeed has been the practice in all previous
elections. Did the Electoral Commission protest?
While universities were
apparently allowed to have such education campaigns and organise debates, panel
discussions, none did so, a reflection of the often demonstrated
pro-Bainimarama biases of their managements and their previously demonstrated
willingness to suppress academic freedom.
The
restricted monitoring
Outrageously, the Attorney-General and
secretary-general of the Fiji First Party also decided that while international
observers and party scrutineers would be allowed to monitor the activities at
the polling stations, he would not allow 300 independent local observers from
the Civil Society-Domestic Elections Observation Group (CSO-DEOG)?
The CSO-DEOG plaintively
and futilely argued that “local community observers are often able to understand
the nuances that international observers cannot, and their absence will leave a
hole in the process.”
Common sense would also
suggest that while international observers would be gone after the elections,
and while party scrutinisers can always be accused of bias should they observe
any irregularities, the local NGOs/CSOs could be relied upon firstly, to be
truly independent and secondly, to maintain institutional memory and ongoing
sustainability in good governance practices in elections. Did the Electoral
Commission protest?
The
flood of vote-buying
The Bainimarama government used its ministerial positions to keep distributing
taxpayer and donor-funded benefits right up to polling day, justifiably
construed as “vote-buying”, given the timing of these benefits.
This was contrary to the
recommendation of the Ghai Draft Constitution which had required that ministers
must resign six months before polling so that the other parties were given a
fair deal.
Then Fiji First Party
deliberately issued its Manifesto of vote-buying goodies a mere 10 days before
the actual polling day. It promised families earning below $20,000 per year,
free electricity, water, medicines, milk for all Class 1 students throughout
the length and breadth of Fiji (more profits for C J Patel who owns Rewa
Dairy), first home grants, a $10 million grant for indigenous Fijian
landowners, a wide range of subsidies in agriculture, and the reinstatement of
Dr Mahendra Reddy’s initial minimum wage of $2.32 per hour (which Bainimarama
and Usamate had last year unilaterally reduced to $2 per hour after pressure
from employers).
Opposition parties and
candidates were given no time to challenge the FFP on the practical viability
of these promises (eg how to identify “poor” families throughout Fiji), least
of all on how all these vote-buying promises would be financed. In contrast,
for months, FFP and their sympathetic journalists had freely attacked the
Opposition parties on their policies.
No one in the media asked
why the FFP Manifesto was virtually 100 percent “freebies” and “handouts” when
Bainimarama in 2008 had promised that his government would not pander to
Fijians’ “hand-out” mentality.
No one in the media or the
MIDA chairman questioned Bainimarama’s blatant use of the racial fear tactic when
he advised Indo-Fijian voters, that if they voted for him there would be no
more coups.
Did the Electoral
Commission or the MIDA chairman protest at any of these unfair electioneering
tactics?
The
media biases
It will not be difficult for even journalism students to establish that the
content of theFiji Sun and the broadcasts by Fiji Broadcasting
Corporation (both radio and television) have been sheer propaganda on behalf of
the Bainimarama government.
Nor to prove that the media
journalists who were the hosts of so-called “debates” between parties, were
blatantly biased in favor of FFP candidates and antagonistic towards Opposition
candidates and parties.
Nor that most debate hosts
played along with the FFP strategy of focusing on non-issue of calling all
citizens “Fijians” while giving opposition candidates little room to raise
their own arguably weightier concerns.
None of the journalists
persevered in asking Bainimarama or Khaiyum why they refused to release
Auditor-General reports since 2006 or the minister’s salaries before 2014; why
they refused to release reports on the FNPF losses at Natadola and Momi; why
their Manifesto promised all the “goodies” just 10 days before polling; why
they had not kept their promise in 2007 that no military personnel would ever
benefit from his coup, or that none of his ministers including himself, would
ever stand for elections; nor the alleged equality of citizens when his
government prosecuted and jailed political opponents, while giving himself and
his collaborators total immunity from 2000 to 2014 for crimes still
unstipulated.
An extraordinary
development in the days prior to polling day was the refusal of FBC to take
paid advertisements from one of the Opposition parties, while freely giving
exposure to FFP and its candidates.
MIDA
and the media
The public also waited in vain for the Media Industry Development Authority
chairman (Ashwin Raj) to exercise an independent regulatory impact on the media
in the run-up to the election.
The
Fiji Times was perpetually on notice having
already been fined a massive $400,000 and its editor (Fred Wesley) given a
suspended six month sentence for what some might call a trivial offence, while
the owner remained overseas with a bench warrant out on another charge.
Three months before the
elections, the MIDA chairman refused to respond to very specific questions
addressing the very core of a free and fair media industry relating to:
·
millions of tax-payers advertisement funds
being channelled by the Bainimarama government only to Fiji Sun with The
Fiji Times being denied;
·
outright massive subsidies given to FBC
(whose CEO was the brother of the Attorney-General) via government budget and
government guarantees of loans from FDB;
·
the intimidating renewal of the licence for
Fiji TV on a six-monthly basis;
·
the sacking of a senior Fiji TV journalist
(Anish Chand) who wanted more critical programmes covering the elections,
because of complaints from the Bainimarama government.
A month before the
election, the MIDA chairman refused to respond when complaints were made about
the biased role of the media and some media journalists in the coverage of the
elections and the debates between parties and candidates.
The
MIDA chairman refused to respond when it was pointed out that Veena Bhatnagar,
who had been a clearly pro-Bainimarama media host of the FBC’s Ainaprogrammed
during a debate between Professor Biman Prasad (leader of NFP) and Aiyaz
Sayed-Khaiyum (secretary of FFP), a mere week later appeared as a candidate for
FFP. So also did the MIDA CEO (Matai Akauola).
None of these were
apparently of concern to the MIDA chairman, who now applauds the media for
their conduct during the elections, a supine media being clearly to his liking.
The
business community
When the facts eventually come out on the
factors that influenced the outcome of the 2014 Elections, the most important
but shadiest one will be the massive campaign funds donated to the FFP by
Fiji’s business houses, most unlikely to be ever revealed to the public as
required by the laws.
This massive corporate
support of FFP was to be expected given that the Bainimarama government in the
2012 Budget had reduced corporate tax from 28 percent to 20 percent and the
highest marginal income tax from 30 percent to 20 percent, and immediately put
more than $150 million annually into the pockets of the wealthy in Fiji.
Against this huge benefit
(and other special ones unknown), collectively giving $10 to $20 million to the
FFP campaign would have been an easy to justify “cost of doing business” in
Fiji, unlikely to ever enter into any WB or ADB Index on “ease of doing
business” in Fiji.
Deserving
special mention is the recipient of several valuable financial benefits from
the Bainimarama government, C J Patel, whose ownership and control of the Fiji
Sun has enabled them to wage a propaganda campaign whose success can only
be guessed at, given the final outcome.
But this is nothing new.
Since 1970, the business community (of all ethnic groups) have funded all
powerful politicians and those controlling government, promptly switching the
support ever so easily from Mara to Chaudhry to Rabuka to Qarase and now to
Bainimarama.
But the 2014 Elections is
unusual in that Bainimarama, through his vote buying, has simultaneously been
able to win a large proportion of the votes of the poor, while enjoying the
financial support of the rich.
It should be interesting
for economics students to follow how long this honeymoon threesome between
Bainimarama’s Minister of Finance, the rich and the poor, will last, especially
when revenues must be eventually increased to meet both the promised “goodies”
and the vastly increased Public Debt.
Another victory for
treason, lies, deceit, money and the “culture of silence”.
The ordinary public,
understandably weary of eight years of social conflict and uncertainty, just
want “to move on”, lulled by the cliché “the people have spoken”.
The international
community, donor partners, regional and international organisations, relations
with Fiji now normalised, will also be relieved to move on, understandably, as
it is not for them to solve Fiji fundamental and systemic political problems.
But it must be terribly
depressing for the many candidates and parties who fought the election on
decent principles of good governance, truth and justice, as it must be for
hard-working civil society organisations, only to find that treason, lies,
deceit and astute propaganda have prevailed.
But they must not hold
themselves responsible.
Despite this age of
limitless and virtually free national and global communications through the
Internet and social media such as Facebook, Twitter and the blogs, ultimately,
morally right decisions must still be made by human beings at the ends of the
communication networks, and such decisions depend profoundly on our educated
social leaders.
Unfortunately, for eight
years now, Fiji’s social leaders have been afflicted by the “culture of
silence” which some attribute not just to material self-interest, but also a
lack of moral courage and integrity.
And
the truth?
Ratu Joni Madraiwiwi gives a nuanced cultural rationalisation that the silence
of indigenous Fijians should not be interpreted to mean consent, and this may
be comforting to some. But that remains at odds with the cacophony of
frequently violent, sometimes well-reasoned dissent engaged in by bloggers on
the internet, where the virtually 100 percent anonymity reduces the social
responsibility and impact of the contributors virtually to zero. Are they going
to get the Fiji they deserve?
The truth may be somewhere
in between these two extreme views, but Fiji is ultimately left to ponder
Edmund Burke’s observation, that all that is needed for evil to prosper is for
good men and women to remain silent.
And silent indeed have been
our legions of senior accountants, lawyers, university academics, principals,
teachers, professionals, bankers, and businessmen, for eight long years, giving
no guidance whatsoever to the hundreds of thousands of first time voters in the
2014 elections.
Some in SODELPA will rue
that what the ethno-nationalists sowed in 1987 and 2000, they have reaped in
2014. The military genie they let out of the bottle then, has refused to go
back into the bottle and they will remain a debilitating drain on taxpayers’
funds for the foreseeable future, to ensure their continued loyalty.
Professor Wadan Narsey is a Fiji economist and analyst
and adjunct professor at James Cook University. He publishes his own columns
and blogs.
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