(o) "Fiji's 1997 Constitution failed to stop the drift to more [ethnic] communalized politics, although this time its power-sharing provisions have produced a multi-party cabinet.* In the long term communalization will not enable political stability, although seeking to remove communalizaton is not likely to be immediately possible politically. Nonetheless, at least three amendments to the Constitution need to be addressed, the first being the adoption of a system of proportional representation instead of preferential voting to give scope to the increasing diversity of positions within all communal groupings, so that no one feels excluded; the second being the amendments to compulsory power sharing in government (guidelines for communal responsibilities in cabinet might be more effective); and the third being the ability to redistribute communal seats after each census on the basis of population without recourse to Constitutional change. These changes would allow Parliament to be more representative of Fiji's population as a whole." [Prof. Robbie Robertson, in Walsh 2006, Fiji: an Encylopaedic Atlas, p.383.]
* After the 2001 Election, PM Qarase refused to allocate cabinet posts to the Labour Opposition, as required in the Constitution. The "power sharing" after the 2006 election finally turned to farce when Mike Beddoes (whose General Voters party, the UPP, had two seats in Parliament) became Leader of the Opposition, and not Labour with its 31 seats. Personal animosity between Qarase and Chaudhry was partly responsible but whatever the causes, power-sharing had not worked.
No comments:
Post a Comment