Fiji Votes Along Ethnic Lines

By Abid Aslam

September 10, 2001

Fiji seems destined for more communal conflict, not less, after moderates lost to ethnic hard-liners in parliamentary polls. The elections were held to restore democracy following last year's nationalist coup in the South Pacific country.

Sectarian candidates prevailed in the vote tallied on September 7. As a result, indigenous Fijian businessman George Speight, who has been in prison since leading the May 2000 coup, appears poised to emerge as political kingmaker. This, as Fiji prepares to write a new constitution.

Caretaker Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase declared victory after his nationalist Fijian United Party (known by its local initials, SDL) captured 31 of the legislature's 71 seats. Because that figure falls short of the 37 seats needed to form a government, Qarase is wooing Speight's Conservative Alliance, which won six seats. Speight himself won a seat, prompting his party to demand his release as a condition of any political deal.

The ethnic Indian-dominated Fiji Labor Party won 27 seats. Two independents won seats and three minor parties took a total of four seats. One seat remains unfilled after a candidate died during campaigning.

Qarase, who heads the National Council for Reconciliation and Unity he established last year, has refused to hold coalition talks with the Labor Party leader, Mahendra Chaudhry, whose government Speight ousted. Chaudhry also has ruled out a pact with Qarase, claiming that the SDL rigged the vote.

Although members of the Conservative Alliance have said they are open to a power-sharing deal with the Labor Party, not just the SDL, Chaudhry is considered unlikely to meet their bottom-line demands: a pardon for Speight, the deputy premiership, and at least two other Cabinet positions.

Chaudhry, after all, was the target of Speight's coup. Qarase, appointed by the military in exchange for Speight's agreement to release parliamentary hostages and surrender, was its beneficiary. Thus, the SDL and Conservative Alliance command the political field, particularly since moderates from both ethnic communities fared poorly.

Tupeni Baba, Chaudhry's deputy prime minister, left the Labor Party two months ago after a falling out with Chaudhry over race and economic policy, and formed the New Labor Unity Party (NLUP). Baba lost his seat to the SDL, although his party managed to hold onto two seats. The SDL also beat moderate ethnic Fijian politician Adi Kuini, leader of the Fijian Association Party and also a deputy prime minister in Chaudhry's government.

Indian and Fijian voters alike rejected the multi-ethnic National Federation Party, which in 1997 had been strong enough to help write the country's first multiracial Constitution.

Even former Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka's Fijian Political Party (SVT), was branded as moderate and failed to win a single seat. The SVT, backed by smaller nationalist parties, held sway over national politics after Rabuka, then a lieutenant colonel, led two 1987 coups against what he termed ethnic Indian domination of commerce and the country's coalition government.

In 1990, Rabuka presided over Constitutional revisions that favored native control and led to large-scale ethnic Indian emigration. As a result, indigenous Fijians reclaimed a majority of the national population for the first time in a century. However, Rabuka went on to frame the 1997 Constitution, paving the way for the country's first 'open,, or not racially prescribed, elections in 1999.

Chaudhry won, becoming the first ethnic Indian prime minister. This had a polarizing influence on Fijian society, with most Indians and Fijians gravitating toward the party deemed to champion their own interests. For Indians, this generally means business opportunities and reform of the sugar industry; for Fijian nationalists, it means retaining exclusive rights to own land and practice traditional, clan-based governance.

Ethnic Indians, descendants of indentured laborers imported by colonial Britain, account for about 44% of Fiji's 800,000-plus population. Indigenous Fijians, who belong to Melanesian and Polynesian clans, make up about 51%.

Chaudhry has alleged electoral fraud and vowed to ask the High Court to overturn results in six constituencies lost by his Labor Party. This is unlikely to prevent Qarase's swearing-in. International observers said the polls were credible and the results generally reflect the public's will.

"We've been through a very difficult time," said the NLUP's Baba. "We've been through an economic crisis. We've been through a bloodbath and it appears now that the people don't want to go for moderation."

Qarase has vowed to complete a new constitution by the end of this year. Election fallout could upset his schedule, but the more worrying prospect is that of intensified political and communal confrontation.

(Abid Aslam <aaslam@igc.org> is a contributing editor at Foreign Policy In Focus and the North America and Caribbean editor of Inter Press Service, an international news agency.)

For more Information:

FPIF Self-Determination Conflict Profile: Fiji