Blocking Labour 'tragedy' for Fiji,warns professor]

[Bill Rosenberg <w.rosenberg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [pasifik_nius] 3385 POLITICS: Blocking Labour 'tragedy' for Fiji,warns
professor
Date: Sun, 02 Sep 2001 18:52:12 -0800
From: Journ12 <David.Robie@xxxxxxxxx>
Organization: Journalism, University of the South Pacific
To: Pasifik Nius <pasifik_nius@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>

Title -- 3385 POLITICS: Blocking Labour 'tragedy' for Fiji, warns
professor
Date --  2 September 2001
Byline -- None
Origin -- Pasifik Nius
Source --  Wansolwara Online, 2/9/1
Copyright -- USP Journalism
Status -- Unabridged
-------------------
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BLOCKING LABOUR 'TRAGEDY' FOR FIJI, WARNS PROFESSOR
http://www.usp.ac.fj/journ/docs/news/wansolnews/wansol0209013.html

Staff Reporters: September 2, 2001
Wansolwara Online (USP)

SUVA (Pasifik Nius): A leading political scientist today warned that any
attempt to block the deposed Fiji Labour Party from forming a new
government if it wins the largest number of seats when counting begins
tomorrow will be a "tragedy" for the country.

"There is an enormous effort from the top down to do that," said
Associate Professor Scott MacWilliam, of the University of the South
Pacific's history/politics department.

"It is disappointing that the position was based upon the claim that
there will be violence if the Labour Party wins.

"It simply means that a small number of thugs are holding the country to
ransom and that's a tragedy in any country."

Prof MacWilliam's comments, made in a fullpage interview with Daily Post
reporter Mithleshni Gurdayal published today, followed lobbying by a
group of Fijian lawyers last week to orchestrate a pact between
indigenous parties aimed at blocking Labour from forming a government.

Most political observers predict a Labour victory in the general
election, in which the week-long voting ended yesterday. Police have set
up tight security with razor wire barricades around the four counting
centres in Suva.

According to Prof MacWilliam, an Australian: "It is likely that the
Labour Party will win the most seats; it is less likely that they will
win an absolute majority."

Asked whether the election would bring about stability for Fiji, he said
the ballot had been conducted in exceptional circumstances and is was
debatable about whether elections could ever bring stability by
themselves.

"Did the last election in 1999 bring stability?" he asked.

"The [Labour-led] People's Coalition Government had an overwhelming
majority of seats in Parliament and yet violence from outside the
parliamentary arena eventuated in overthrowing the government.

"It seems that a lot of people take the rhetoric of elections as the way
of solving crisis. Nowhere in the world have elections been the sole
means of dealing with those matters.

"Elections have been accompanied by other things like presidential
security guards and so forth.

"Elections alone don't solve anything."

Prof MacWilliam said it was an exceptional election in the sense that it
was not within direct constitutional provisions.

There was also a question about whether the decision to hold an election
itself was unconstitutional - "it still hangs in the air".

"What, for instance, has been the effect of all the intimidation,
harassment and so forth?" he asked.

"When people talk about a free, fair and open election, it may be that
the election process itself is fairly blemish-free or faultless, but
what about the background to that?

"How have people been persuaded to vote by either bribes or by threats
and fears?"

While Fiji had been undergoing a transition with urbanisation as
elswhere in the world, "it's been urbanised in poverty".

Prof MacWilliam said the victory of Labour, which offered policies to
address poverty,  had been so substantial in 1999 that he had predicted
then that the People's Coalition would win the next two elections.

"They had so far completely wiped out the Opposition. It would have
taken something very dramatic for them to lose all that support as a
result of last year," he said.

"In fact, you could say that there were things that have encouraged
people to go to the Labour Party - the job losses and the kinds of
appeals that the party had made like cutting off the value-added tax
(VAT)," he said.

"Finding jobs would appeal to the poor people. It not only appealed to
the Indo-Fijians, but many ethnic Fijians in the urban areas who have
seen their living standards decline."

Prof MacWilliam said so much depended on what ethnic Fijians had done
with their vote in the urban area.

"Urbanisation is a factor here," he said.

Earlier, in an interview with Wansolwara Online last week, Prof
MacWilliam had said many politicians vying for seats in the election
were not serious about addressing the need to improve living standards,
create employment opportunities or attract international investment.

Instead, they had embarked on a "racialist" campaign similar to that in
South Africa.


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