FIJI - Is Fiji on the road to democracy?

This article from BBC Asia entitled “Is Fiji on the road to democracy” published on the 16th of September 2014 is about the recent election in Fiji. Since 1987, four coups have taken place in Fiji, because of ethnic tensions. Mr Bainimarama wanted to stop these tensions and therefore made a coup too, in 2006. He overturned the civil government arguing they were corrupt. Furthermore, he preferred the Indigenous Fijians in comparison to the ethnic Indians. Australia and New Zealand as neighbouring countries of Fiji put the new military government under pressure to hold a vote to install a civil government. Consequently, Frank Bainimarama stepped back as Fiji's military chief in order to participate in the polls as a candidate. He wants to keep his power but this time as president elected by the population.

The current election in Fiji doesn’t happen without manipulation. The government has imposed some requirements for campaigning. For instance, only parties, which receive money from outside can for example participate. The voters are also influenced by the press, which is not free at all since the incident in 2006. According to Amnesty International, there is a lot of self-censorship and fear because of the strict laws such as the ban to criticise the government in public. Officially, there has been no more censorship in Fiji since 2012.

What we have to say about this:

The central question of this article is if Fiji is on the road back to democracy. It is said that this long-awaited vote is very important for Fiji’s way towards a more democratic country because it is the first time since the coup of 2006 that people have the opportunity to vote for a new government. But there are observers who think that the vote won’t bring Fiji back on the way to a democratic system. The government has to make rearrangement before this can happen because the fundamental institutions have suffered during the years of suppression. The article also mentions the doubts of certain experts.

In a democracy, all citizens can decide what happens with the state and the government. In order to use this opportunity wisely, one has to be able to make up one’s own opinion. This is only possible if every argument and point of view can be made public and therefore reach the people who can then decide what they agree with or don’t agree with. Thus freedom of press, which is still an issue in Fiji, is crucial for opinion formation and consequently for a democracy.

Corruption is also a problem in Fiji that is a bar to a free democracy. This can’t be solved overnight because the people who are in charge don’t want to give up their powers. In addition, Fiji has been a corrupt state for a long time and this way of governance is engrained in the minds of the citizens. It is a hard and long process to change the way of thinking of a whole nation. So just one democratic, non-corrupt election is not enough, but it is a step into the right direction.

Now that Mr Bainimarama has been voted in, a lot of observers from other countries are wondering about whether he is the right person to bring Fiji back to democracy. These doubts are not unfounded because Bainimarama is one of the most influent military leaders of Fiji. This means that he is used to ruling by decree and he is also used to having a lot of power. Experts therefore think that he might use his political influence in his own favour and this would obviously not lead to a fair and democratic system for Fiji’s population. As we know the person that leads a country contributes a lot to the democratic future of this country.

This election is the first in which the whole population can participate. There is no regard to races. In this poll, all persons are at the same level. But this does not mean, that also in daily life all people are seen as equal. This democratic election does not solve the problems and tensions between the different races. It is crucial for a functioning democracy that the people belonging to the same population can work and form a nation. But in the past many conflicts appeared in Fiji due to racial tensions.

In Switzerland the democracy has been developed over a long period of and it is valued by most people. By contrast, Fijians didn’t come up with the idea on their own, there was also pressure from other states and it is a fairly recent change. Hence mentality of these people is different from ours since they didn’t establish it entirely out of their own will.

Racism is still a big issue in Fiji because for long time, the people were not equal in front of the law. In Switzerland there are also different cultures between the people living in the German, Italian and French speaking part. But they all have the same rights and there are no conflicts between them anymore. Therefore Switzerland is based on a system of collaboration despite the different cultural backgrounds. In contrast to Fiji which still has to overcome racism in order to form a unity. [S.W. Z.K. V.B.]