Sunday Feature: Why We Have Bad Leaders

In our focus on individuals, we have neglected the role of institutions in shaping polity and the social order. I hope this short piece advances the debate as Fiji attempts to move forward.

Why Do We Have Bad Leaders?

by Sudarsan Kant

 It is almost a truism among the commenteriat class to attribute the years of political hiccups in Fiji to bad leadership. Repeated often with varying degrees of gravitas and concern, “bad leadership” has basically taken a life of its own, denoting not only political and economic failure across the decades, but the ensuing deformation of some of our most cherished institutions. It often seems that only emerging democracies are afflicted with this peculiar “crisis of leadership” contagion, and thus the invasive scrutiny many of these leaders face from the advanced democracies. 

I must confess at this juncture that I too have been guilty of using “bad leadership” as a useful trope to explain the complex and often bewildering sets of events that have engulfed Fiji for over a quarter of a century. However an exaggerated emphasis on subjective analysis of individual leadership is an insufficient explanation of our political travails and it is time to look beyond the conventional wisdom and the tired truisms. 

            A better theory that explains why we have been served a steady diet of dodgy leaders is because the institutions (formal and informal rules) create the conditions that make possible the emergence of questionable leadership. Institutions, Ellen Immergut argues “structure interactions” and shape strategies that may lead to desired outcomes under specific conditions. The political rules in Fiji have been rigged for a long time which encourage a toxic mix of nativist grievances, Indo-Fijian recalcitrance, religious intolerance, ethnic cleavages, state and business collusion, etc., all of which have contributed to years of mismanagement and political immiseration.

         

   Let us look at the case of Mr. Qarase, which has been offered by his detractors as a prime example of bad leadership, resulting in our current predicament. In reviewing Mr. Qarase’s tenure, Subhash Appana recently argued that Mr. Qarase evinced a deep racial animus against other ethnic communities and that his overriding governing philosophy was racialist in tone and substance. However, apart from some unfortunate and careless rhetoric of his and his supporters, there was nothing particularly unusual in the way he governed during his term in office than any of his predecessors. Mr. Qarase acted quite rationally within the institutional constrains that encouraged the promotion and cultivation of ethnic particularities and rewarded extremist   displays of nationalist bona fides. The attempt to codify in law public policy that favored specific ethnic communities was simply a logical extension of existing institutional norms that encouraged the privileging of a nativist agenda. Mr. Qarase took advantage of both formal and informal rules to secure and expand his base through a vast network of patronage and clientelism. It is therefore misleading to vilify him for his success in playing the political game from a template not of his choosing, but certainly to his liking.

            Institutions shape the contours of our political landscape, thus the political rules we have in Fiji are aptly reflected in the political leadership we have. These rules have for a long time rewarded racial polarization, religious intolerance, gender inequality, financial shenanigans, extremist rhetoric, contempt for modernity, incompetence, misplaced loyalties, class stratifications and divisiveness. Why are we surprised time and again when individuals rise up to play by these rules and take advantage of the institutional structures already in place?

            Only by changing the rules of the game can we even stand a chance of developing leadership that is worthy of leading a diverse and inclusive society. The reform of our political institutions is imperative and necessary if we are to make any progress in creating a society that we say we want. It is time to construct rules that promote transparency, pluralism and equality for a nation of decent and hardworking people, who deserve better leaders than the ones they have been saddled with. It is time to construct institutions that make appeals to race, religion, class or even gender extremely costly to ones political ambitions and calculations. We need enforceable rules that raise the transaction costs for individuals and groups that promote narrow and sectarian ideologies, with the goal of ultimately marginalizing them to the fringes of society. For example Europe after World War Two went to great lengths in isolating and in some cases banning racist and fascist organizations, thus forcing mainstream parties and moderate politicians to disassociate themselves from these groups and their ideologies if they wanted to maintain legitimacy and participate in the political process.

We have bad leaders because we have bad rules that reward insularity, irredentism and the balkanization of society. It is time to create institutions that are conducive to attracting only those individuals and groups willing to work for the common good, with a governing philosophy that is winsome, decent, and just. The people of Fiji deserve nothing less.

kantsudarsan@hotmail.

* Ellen M. “The Theoretical Core of the New Institutionalism” Politics and Society, Vol. 26, No. 1 (March 1998), pp. 5-34.