A political dissection

Literature

By Nicolas Rothwell

One splendid Monday morning,

during a recent stay in Port Vila, I was sipping coffee in an elegant patisserie, reading the local Press and con templating the chaos of Vanuatu’s politics, when a metallic-grey Hyundai drew up outside. Into the patisserie came Walter Lini, father of Vanuatu’s independence.

He was relaxed; he smiled. Escorted by his wife, he sat down beside one of the country’s best-known business entrepreneurs. The sound of their laughter filled the cafe for the next half-hour.

Just how, I wondered, did Vanuatu get from the glorious optimism of its first post-independence days, in 1980, to the confusions and instabilities of 1996? How did Father Lini evolve from his starring role as Vanuatu’s first prime minister and an international symbol of good leader ship, to his cameo part in this February’s upheaval, when, as outgoing minister of justice. Father Lini tried to replace the key figures in the nation’s legal system?

Some of the answers to these questions lie in the pages of an extraordinary new book, Melanesian Politics - Stael Blong Vanuatu, a collective volume edited by Howard Van Trease and produced under the auspices of the Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies and the University of the South Pacific’s Institute for Pacific Studies. Let it be said at once: This book is a masterpiece of political analysis, one of the key works of post colonial Pacific history, and by far the most valuable volume yet to appear on modem Vanuatu. Its relentless, almost obsessional devotion to detail, its attention both to regional and to national issues, its dissecting of traditional custom structures and factional fights within the established parties combine to make it a crucial work of reference. Among the authors are almost all the political leaders of the coun try, and they write with often startling can dour of their aims and their behaviour.

The ostensible subject of the book is the 1991 national election. This was the first vote in Vanuatu’s history that resulted in no single party gaining a clear majority, and hence it proved the cusp point in the transition from' stable government by the long-dominant Vanua’aku Pati (VP) to the present system of shifting coalition rule.

The true focus of the book, though, is far more inclusive: The origins of the country’s political system, the efforts of

the French colonial authorities to cement in place a significant francophone ni- Vanuatu population, the uproar in the run up to independence - all these are well covered by Van Trease in his introduction.

The gloomy background to the 1991 electoral campaign is briefly given - the severe stroke -suffered by Father Lini in 1987 and his partial recovery; the leader ship challenge by Barak Sope and the bit ter split in the VP’s ranks. The election’s ambiguous outcome serves, of course, as a pointer to the current, mid-90s pattern of Vanuatu politics. But the most valuable section of Melanesian Politics - Stael Blong Vanuatu is a detailed, chapter-by chapter breakdown of voting trends and allegiances over time in the individual islands of the archipelago. Each of these is written by a ni-Vanuatu expert, and the level of detail included is such as to trans form an outsider’s appreciation of region al politics. Piece by piece, the individual segments cohere into a ground-level histo ry of Vanuatu’s development since inde pendence, with local pressures and influ ences, especially those of rival religious

organisations, given their true signifi

cance. Intriguing snippets of island infor mation are conveyed in authoritiative fashion, bringing to vivid life voting pat terns that have long seemed bizarre when viewed from the distant comfort of a Port

Vila tally-room.

Howard Van Trease’s cautious conclu sion seems more than justified. The 1991 election, he says, “can be described as the return to a more Melanesian style of poli tics in Vanuatu in which the extreme diversity of the population - 105 different languages in a population of just over 150,000 dispersed over a multitude of islands - and significance of local person

alities re-emerged to replace the artificial

dominance of a single political party”.

In this light, the subsequent five years, with their delirious power struggles, feuds and reversals of alliances, now seem like business as usual: Vanuatu is no longer “beyond pandemonium”. Indeed, for close to a decade the pattern has been one of tur moil and instability.

As one reads the historical record anal ysed in Melanesian Politics - Stael Blong Vanuatu and considers the events of the year to date, it remains unclear just how this pattern could be broken. In the first days of May, conspirational attempts to create a new government were well under way, while furious petitions were being presented to the chief justice in a bid to overturn the results of the recent election of the prime minister. At least the mem bers of the present government are famil iar with all this infighting: No fewer than six of the ministers in the current coalition are contributors to Howard Van Trease’s volume. I stayed in my seat in the Port Vila patisserie, and watched as Walter Lini laughed and joked with his new friends.

The scorching essay by Grace Mera Molisa in Melanesian Politics - Stael Blong Vanuatu lay open on the table before me: “The Vanua’aku Pati was too strong for any opposition party to threaten its position and the only way its unity and solidarity could be undermined would have to come from within. That is, in fact, what occurred. Insidiously, gradually, irre versibly, fatally, the VP self-destructed at the core of its leadership.”

Father Lini got to his feet as I was read ing, and made his way outside. There are, of course, many sides to each story in Vanuatu politics and, sadly. Father Lini’s own views and those of his supporters are absent from this book - perhaps because they would have found it too painful to recollect the decay of the old VP, that bea con of radical Pacific politics. Despite this notable absence, however, I was glad to have Howard Van Trease’s masterful vol ume tucked under my arms as I went out that morning into the unchanged, uncer tain streets of Port Vila. ■

Melanesian Politics - Stael Blong Vanuatu: Edited by Howard Van Trease; published 1995 by the Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies, University of Canterbury, New Zealand (Price: NZSNZ49.SO); and by the Institute of Pacific Studiies, University of the South Pacific, PO Box 1168, Suva (Price: SUS 39, or SUS 49 for airmail. French edition also available from USP.