(B) Electoral Reform for Fiji

 Electoral Reform for Fiji: the Importance of Speedily Ending Malapportionment

by

Scott MacWilliam

The current regime in Fiji has correctly identified one vote one value as an important democratic principle which should underpin electoral reform in Fiji. The system used under the 1997 Constitution for the 1999, 2001 and 2006 elections grossly distorted the weight given to votes as between different constituencies, which is malapportionment, but not gerrymandering. (The latter involves the specific drawing of electorate boundaries to benefit a particular party or individual candidate, and was not a major feature of the Fiji electoral system.)

Malapportionment is usually initiated when conservative parties, with their bases in rural areas have most influence. In federations, where there is an elected upper house or Senate, there is often constitution derived, deliberate malapportionment which favours states or provinces with small populations. In the US, each state has two Senators, whether the population is large – California, New York etc. – or small – Alaska, Wyoming, South Dakota etc. In Australia there are twelve Senators per state, with each seat in Tasmania allocated per approximately 27,000 voters and in New South Wales and Victoria allocated on the basis of about 330,000 voters. That is, a senator from the two most populated states represents more than ten times as many people as a senator from Tasmania. A former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating was in part referring to this disparity when he described members of the Senate from all parties as ‘unrepresentative swill’.

However for much of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries lower house seats for the national and sub-national legislatures have been malapportioned as well, usually reflecting the continuing power of rural interests in the major parties or coalitions. It was not until 1974, that malapportionment was removed for House of Representative seats in Australia and the practice remained at the state level until recently. It has often been the case that the Australian Labor Party has campaigned hardest for reform, but in seeking to become the dominant force in conservative politics in Australia the Liberal Party – or at least some its members – also favoured the end of malapportionment. One vote one value is a cause with political as well as moral imperatives.

This is the case for Fiji too: the malapportionment of the old electoral system played a major part in keeping the country’s political economy mired in its rural past, even as the population shifted to the urban areas. Along with this shift educated, skilled workers and professionals formed a larger proportion of the labour force. While communal electorates are widely regarded as conservative, being important for keeping Fiji’s politics race-based, malapportionment should also be credited – if that is the right word – with reinforcing this and other anti-democratic features.

As with extending the franchise to 18 year olds, which I first advocated after witnessing the May 1999 election, one vote one value is a reform with long term potential consequences. It fits neatly with another plank of the Bainimarama government’s proposed reforms, weakening the power of the chiefs in party politics. It should also weaken the rural base of the FLP, and add impetus to the much-needed reform of that party.

Unfortunately the longer it takes for the electoral and other reform agenda to be implemented, the more overseas migration will occur among the parts of the population which elsewhere have been vital for democratic and related advances. It is not too fanciful to say that quickly checking the migration of skilled workers and professionals is as vital for Fijian democracy to flourish, as it is for strengthening the economy. Instead, as things are now, the proportion of the unemployed, marginalised people in urban areas will continue to grow and provide a reconstructed major base for populist, racialist politics once again. It is arguable that this has already begun, with marginalised youth being prominent ‘foot soldiers’ during the 2000 revolt.

Ending malapportionment is not simply a feel-good change but one which is at least as important as any other electoral reform for the long-term advance of Fiji. In their avowed aim to end this characteristic of the electoral system, the current government is more in tune with the future needs of Fiji than any of the previous political parties, each of which had its own reasons for continuing with malapportionment and racial identification of citizens.