By Sadhana Sen
For the third year running, COVID-19 is defining and disrupting life, leadership and governance in the Pacific. Compounded by climate change-related flooding and the devastating Hunga-Tonga-Hunga-Ha’apai volcanic eruption, 2022 is off to a challenging start. Some Pacific nations are now grappling with their first cases of community transmission of COVID-19, regional meetings have been deferred, and schools opened, then closed in many places. In other Pacific nations, borders finally opened, giving much hope for economic rebuilding, only to close again. Meanwhile, the rollout of vaccinations and boosters continues at a widely-varying pace.
Pacific nations go to the polls
Four Pacific island nations are scheduled to hold elections this year; Cook Islands, Nauru, Papua New Guinea and Fiji. Australians will also go to the polls. All are likely to be highly charged events, given COVID-19 management challenges and the subsequent hardships experienced in many countries.
In Fiji, the Supervisor of Elections office has been mired in controversy. First it attempted to de-register a long time Opposition member of Parliament, Niko Nawaikula, over the registration and use of his name. He lost his parliamentary seat but appealed. When on appeal the Solicitor General’s office lost the case, the SG Sharvada Sharma, an officer with 24 years of legal service to the Fijian government, was first suspended then fired from his position on the complaint of the Supervisor of Elections. Sharma is now challenging his dismissal before the courts.
The Nawaikula matter prompted an amendment to the Electoral Registration of Voters Act which requires people now registering to vote to ensure they are registered with the name specified in their birth certificates. The amendment impacts married women in particular, who may have previously used their married names. They are now required to either re-register to vote under their birth certificate name or to get an amendment done to their birth certificate by adding their married name or preferred name.
Seven women, supported by the Fiji Women’s Rights Movement and the Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre, have since filed a Constitutional challenge against the new law, claiming it discriminates on the grounds of sex, gender and marital status, and that requiring this change a year from elections will essentially disenfranchise thousands of women from exercising their right to vote.
Papua New Guinea heads to its tenth national elections this year with electoral challenges of the past remaining. Updating its roll using the 2021 census (as hoped for by government), but questions over funding and the capacity to do so in its statistics office is concerning analysts.
If the Port Moresby North West (MNW) by-elections is any indication, candidate numbers for the national elections are expected to be at an all-time high, with lengthier counting time, and many elimination rounds under its Limited Preferential voting system.
A strong lobby is hoping for the passage of temporary special measures to ensure better representation of women in the male-dominated PNG parliament. If it fails, the onus will fall on political parties to field women candidates in safe seats to return more women candidates to Parliament.
The leadership battle seems likely to be between incumbent James Marape and the man he replaced in 2019, Peter O’Neill. While electioneering in PNG is said to be largely localised, national issues likely to feature in the campaigns include the state of the economy, growth and job creation, as well as COVID-19 numbers and deaths, given PNG’s low vaccination rates.
PNG’s election is also likely to slow discussions over self-determination/independence with Bougainville authorities, which will frustrate President Ishmael Toroama.
Meanwhile the territories of American Samoa, Guam and the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands will hold elections in November this year.
Throughout the year, the three French Pacific dependencies of New Caledonia, French Polynesia and Wallis and Futuna will be focused on elections, regional ties and the ongoing pandemic.
In New Caledonia, following December’s third referendum on self-determination, supporters and opponents of independence await the results of looming French elections, before negotiations can determine a new political status after the Noumea Accord. In Wallis and Futuna, the Territorial Assembly will go to elections in March, with 20 councillors elected from five constituencies (Hififo, Hahake, Mua, Alo, Sigave). This vote come just before French President Emmanuel Macron seeks re-election in April.
Across the region, local political parties are also campaigning for seats in the French National Assembly in Paris, during June’s legislative elections. The formation of a new French government in mid-2022 will re-align France’s Indo-Pacific policies after the AUKUS snub, and extend engagement with the Forum’s ‘Blue Pacific’ agenda. Holding the Presidency of the European Union Council until June, Paris will press EU and French agendas through funding through the SPC (the French Senate has just appointed a fact finding mission to investigate “the exploration, protection and exploitation of the seabed”).
Still facing the health and economic effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, the governments of all three French dependencies are facing public backlash over the introduction of French vaccine mandates, which require Covid-19 vaccination to access public facilities, cafes and restaurants. The ongoing disruption of the pandemic, especially to tourism, travel and supply chains, continues to cause economic hardship in the community.
In the Solomon Islands, troubled by riots in December 2021, constitutional changes to strengthen decentralised provincial governments are expected to be high on the political agenda, although the first cases of community transmission will be a necessary priority (see page 13).
Regionalism: unity and the gender agenda
The inaugural Pacific Islands Forum Women Leaders Meeting (FWLM) is the first regional event this year, scheduled for February ahead of the Forum Leaders meeting in April, with a mandate “to ensure an enduring focus on the critical role gender has on issues in the Pacific.”
Women continue to be underrepresented in most Pacific parliaments, and the region has just two women heading governments; Samoa’s Fiame Naomi Mata’afa and New Zealand’s Jacinda Ardern.
The FWLM is an initiative of Australia’s Foreign Minister and Minister for Women, Marise Payne and aims to provide “direct advice to Forum Leaders on gender equality issues in the Pacific.” It will feature women leaders from Pacific parliaments.
The Pacific Island Forum’s gender agenda this year includes revitalisation of the decade-old Pacific Leaders Gender Equality Declaration, signed in the Cook Islands when current Secretary General Henry Puna hosted the meeting as Prime Minister. The Gender Declaration was recently reviewed and the FWLM is expected to discuss this review and present new ideas for improving the status of Pacific women.
Australia has heavily invested in this work already. It has spent AUD$320 million (US$) through the Pacific Women program, managed by Australian company Cardno. A decade later, the program has wrapped up, with a new funding tranch of AUD$270 million announced, to be managed this time by the Pacific Community (SPC).
A worthy investment by Australia, but questions arise on what has the region gained? Not only does the Pacific region have the lowest percentage of women as leaders of any region in the world, it has twice the global average of violence against women, according to UN Women. What value will another meeting bring, given it comes on the heels of the SPC-organised Women’s Triennial? Maybe getting the Pacific heads of governments’ endorsement or ownership of the AUD$170 million Pacific Women Lead Program will make a difference?
Meanwhile the in-person Forum Leaders Retreat scheduled to be hosted by Fiji’s Prime Minister and PIF Chair Voreqe Bainimarama, has now been deferred.
After two years of Zoom meetings, a face-to-face event should be welcomed, given the critical and sensitive issues facing the region. However these meeting plans continue to be thwarted by a third wave of COVID-19 transmissions in Fiji and Bainimarama’s health problems; he underwent cardiac surgery earlier this month and is not expected back at work until the end of February.
The most critical agenda item on the Forum agenda remains the membership status of its Micronesian members after they vowed to withdraw from the group by March. There has been domestic pressure on some leaders to pull back from their threat. While Palau is adamant it will pull out, Marshall Islands is still discussing its options internally. FSM, Kiribati, and Nauru are yet to show a change of heart despite the Forum’s attempts at mediation.
Also on the leaders’ agenda will be the presentation of the 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent and linked to this, a review of the regional architecture. COP26 outcomes and the usefulness and practicality of regional climate change action plans and advisories on natural disasters, (given the shortcomings of warning systems for the Tongan volcanic eruption and its aftermath), is something regional citizens will expect leaders to urgently address.
