Out with the old guard
p. 35 · Read in the full issue
THE winds of change are blowing through the South Pacific and they will require careful handling by the island sates and a great deal of understanding by neighbouring countries like New Zealand and Australia.
The changes we are talking about involve people and pressures to modify constitutional systems the island nations inherited from their colonial past.
The old guard of island leaders who steered their countries into indepen dence and oversaw their emergence as sovereign nations is passing. Men like Fiji’s Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, Head Chief Hammer deßoburt, of Nauru and Niue’s Sir Robert Rex, who dominated their nations and were in many ways fathers of Pacific indepen dence for two decades, have gone.
Now Tofilau Eti Alesana, who be came active in politics in 1957, long
before any political parties were formed and five years before Western Samoa gained independence, has said he wants to quit when his Human Rights Protection Party decides on a successor.
As the old leaders depart, the appropriateness of their countries’ systems of government and economic development to today’s world is increasingly being questioned by a new generation of citizens and leaders.
This is hardly surprising. The island states, territories and dependencies in the region have a myriad of political and legal systems stemming from a variety of colonial influences that govern the lives of their people.
Three years ago, the New Zealand government’s South Pacific Policy Review Group noted; “It is clear from all the change now abroad in island country region that political evolution in the Pacific, which had its beginnings before colonisation, did not stop at the time of independence.
Most Pacific island countries have now lived with their constitutions for one or two decades. In many countries there is a wide perception that constitutional reform or adaptation is needed, even though there is not, in many cases, any consensus on the direction and form that reform should take.”
The pace of change has increased since then. Western Samoa, for instance, introduced universal suffrage in 1991 (though members of the Fono must still be matai ), Fiji has a new constitution under which elections were held last year and Nauru has abolished its local government council.
In Papua New Guinea, there is pressure to abandon the provincial government system which some see as costly, wasteful and an impediment to national development.
The Solomon Islands and Tuvalu, which both maintain the British Queen as Head of State, represented by governors general, are talking increasingly about becoming republics.
Vanuatu, whose transition to independence was compli cated by the existence of two colonial administrations and was less peaceful than most, has been considering for some time constitutional changes to provide for democratic participation different from the Westminster-style parliamen tary model it inherited, and more in line with traditional
decision-making processes. The fo cus for change in recent years has been on Tonga, where there ap pears to have been something of a groundswell of public opinion in favour of political reform to reduce the power of the hereditary nobles and give commoners more say.
Crown Prince Tupouto’a, the heir to the throne, held out the prospect of reform recently in an interesting interview with Malangi Tonga. Asked about democracy, he said: “I think it is something that has to evolve eventually”.
He indicated his willingness to see political parties established, saying: “If there were formal party struc tures, with manifestos, researchers, economic research, who could then put up a platform and say this is what we stand for,..then that would
be a more reliable heir to the power of the present King.”
In other parts of the Pacific, including Guam, French Polynesia and New Caledonia, new constitutional arrange ments with metropolitan powers are still evolving.
Closer to home, for New Zealand, Niue continues to debate constitutional reform. There is no better example of the pace of political change than here having had two prime ministers in three months following the death of Sir Robert Rex, who was the island nation’s leader for 18 years.
Change has even come to Tokelau, which remains formally administered by New Zealand. Last December it acquired a more formal and comprehensive measure of self-government, deciding to establish a Council of Faipule to act when the General Fono is not in session.
The Faipule selects one of their number to be the Ulu o Tokelau , or titular leader, for a rotational 12-month term, giving Tokelau’s 1600 people a recognised leader of government for the first time.
More pressure for change in the region is inevitable.
Economic development slow but inevitable better education, the emergence of a middle class as privatisation increases and the numbers of Pacific island people travelling and living overseas all provide democratising influences.
With the days of the old guard of leaders over, it will take time for a country like New Zealand to re-establish the easy familiarity that existed on a personal level and made relationships so comfortable.
The challenge for New Zealand is to encourage those influences, while not dictating their course or outcome.
Some New Zealanders, discomfited by the sight of Sitiveni Rabuka getting a military guard of honour when he visited Wellington and unhappy about Fiji’s constitution, are impatient for change.
“The point is,” counsels Prime Minister Jim Bolger, “the systems of democracy practised in the Pacific are somewhat of a variant of what’s practised in New Zealand, Australia or Great Britain. I think we should understand that.”