A dim road-map for democracy

FIJI'S CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS is sought to be resolved by its leaders belonging to the majority indigenous people in a strange but arguably `sensible' manner. In a moralist sense, this can only help sustain the international community's doubts about the willingness of the native Fijians, or at least their leaders, to share power with the tiny South Pacific state's ethnic Indians, who constitute nearly 44 per cent of the population as an overwhelming minority. Fiji's leaders are packaging their narrow majoritarian approach as the only practical solution that could prevent a recrudescence of violence against the ethnic Indians. In essence, the international community is being asked to empathise with not only the ethnic Indians but also the native South Pacific stock, however wholesome might be the Fijian identity claimed by the country's huge minority. Viewed in this perspective, it is not surprising that the latest manoeuvres made by the native Fijian chiefs and their loyalists among the political leaders have not produced any new international backlash, at this moment at least. At stake are the constitutional legitimacy and political credibility of the promise being made by the latest `interim' administration to hold a general election next August with a view to restoring democracy that was dismantled by Mr. George Speight, an amateur leader of a `coup' and by the Fijian military establishment in that order last year.

The immediate gameplan of Fiji's Great Council of Chiefs, which occupies a pivotal constitutional space, in conjunction with the President as also the twice-born `interim' Prime Minister is not far to seek. Their main calculation is that the international community can be persuaded to give them a chance to resolve their crisis on their own. From their standpoint, Fiji has remained largely on the back-burners of the foreign policy establishments of major powers despite some sanctions that Australia and New Zealand, in particular, imposed on Suva last year in the context of Mr. Speight's `coup' and the military's `counter-coup'. It is also a truism that external sanctions might only hurt the interests of the ethnic Indians, who have over time commanded a strategic presence in Fiji's economy. But the core element of the current constitutional crisis is the continued denial of Indian political rights since the day when Mr. Speight `ousted' Mr. Mahendra Chaudhry, Fiji's first elected Prime Minister with an Indian ancestry.

The latest judgment by the Court of Appeal has been ostensibly accepted by Fiji's native chiefs. This outward reality pertains to the court-ordained sanctity of the multi-racial Constitution of 1997, which facilitated Mr. Chaudhry's emergence as Prime Minister in 1999. This implies that Fiji's traditional power- brokers will not dispute the court's finding that the 1997 Constitution is ``a reliable expression of the hopes and aspirations of the whole population'' inclusive of the natives. By resorting nevertheless to a stratagem of replacing for just a day the military-backed `interim' civilian government, whose legality the court has ruled against, and by requisitioning the services of a hand-picked Prime Minister for barely 19 hours in order to have the coup-crippled parliament revived only to be dissolved, the Fijian leaders have sought to observe the final word in law. The only justification for such astonishing tactics is the principle of `necessity'. The argument is that the restoration of Mr. Chaudhry will be a divisive step. If he is therefore unable to mobilise the Fijian masses across the racial divide over this `injustice', the promised August poll will be the only near-term test of his country's honour. The efforts of the powers-that-be to rewrite the 1997 document have been declared null and void by a court, even as Mr. Chaudhry steps up campaign against a perceived constitutional charade.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Opinion
Previous : A realistic line
Next     : The 'secular' conceit