ANALYSIS: By Denise Fisher

Monday night saw demonstrations by independence supporters in New Caledonia erupt into serious violence for the first time since the 1980s civil disturbances.

The mainly indigenous demonstrators were opposing President Emmanuel Macron’s imposition of constitutional change to widen voter eligibility unless discussions about the future begin soon.

The protests occurred the day before France’s National Assembly was to vote on the issue, and just after Macron had proposed new talks in Paris.

On Monday, May 13, in Noumea, as France’s National Assembly debated the constitutional change in Paris, their local counterparts in the New Caledonian Congress were debating a resolution calling for withdrawal of the legislation.

The debate was bitter, after months of deepening division between independence and loyalist parties and focusing as it did on one of the most sensitive issues to each side, that of voter eligibility. The resolution was passed, as independence parties secured the support of a small minority party to outnumber the loyalists.

Macron, in an eleventh hour bid to prompt all parties to participate in new discussions about the future, proposed on May 13 to hold talks in Paris, but only after the Assembly vote of May 14 (albeit before the next step in the constitutional amendment process, a meeting of both houses).

Independence party leaders had called on their supporters to demonstrate against the constitutional reform, to coincide with the National Assembly’s consideration of the issue. The evening of May 13 was marked by violence on a scale not seen in decades.

Burning of buildings, roadblocks
It included the burning of buildings and businesses, roadblocks preventing movement in and out of the capital, and the closure of airports and ports in some of the islands. Police were targeted with gunfire and stoning, resulting in 35 injured police.

As of yesterday, Tuesday May 14, people were being asked to stay at home, with a curfew imposed. France, which already had 700 police on the job in New Caledonia, has sent reinforcements to maintain order.

The violence immediately brought to the minds of leaders the bloodshed of the 1980s, termed “les événements”.

The French High Commissioner, or governor, suggested things were moving “towards an abyss” and cancelled some incoming flights to prevent complications from tourists being unable to access Noumea, while noting that the airport and main wharf remain open. He urged independence leaders to use their influence on the young to stop the violence.

The Mayor of Noumea, Sonia Lagarde, described the situation as “extremely well organised guerrilla warfare” involving “well-trained young people” and suggested “a sort of civil war” was approaching.

On the face of it, to an outsider, Macron’s plan to broaden voter eligibility to those with 10 years’ residence prior to any local election, unless discussions about the future begin, would seem reasonable.

He sees the three independence votes held from 2018–21 as legal, notwithstanding the largely indigenous boycott of the third. (Each referendum saw a vote to stay with France, although support was narrow, declining from 56.7% to 53.3% in the first two votes, but ballooning to 96.5% in the third vote boycotted by independence supporters.)

‘Radical’ for white Caledonians, ‘unconscionable’ for Kanaks
For New Caledonians, Macron’s positioning is radical. Loyalists see it as a vindication of their position.

But for independence parties, France’s stance has been unconscionable.  Independence leaders reject the result of the boycotted referendum and want another self-determination vote soon.

Some have refused to participate in discussions organised by France, although one of the most recalcitrant elements suggested some discussion would be possible just days before the violent demonstrations.

But they have all strongly opposed Macron’s imposing constitutional change to widen voter eligibility unilaterally from Paris. They were affronted by his appointment of a prominent loyalist MP as the rapporteur responsible for shepherding the issue through the Assembly.

They have instead been calling for a special mission led by an impartial figure to bring about dialogue.

More importantly, they see the highly sensitive voter eligibility issue as a central negotiating chip in discussions about the future. Confining voter eligibility only to those with longstanding residence on a fixed basis — not by a number of years prior to any local election as Macron is proposing — was fundamental to securing independence party acceptance of peace agreements over 30 years, after France had operated a policy of bringing in French nationals from elsewhere to outweigh local independence supporters who are primarily indigenous.

Differences have deepened
With the inconclusive end of these agreements, differences have only deepened.

Loyalist leaders have accused independence leaders of planning the violence. Whether it was planned or whether demonstrations degenerated, either way it is clear that emotions are running high among independence supporters, who feel their position is not being respected.

No sustainable solution for the governance of New Caledonia is possible without the cooperation of all parties.

It seems that, regardless of Macron’s evident intention of spurring parties to come to the discussion table, his plan has backfired. Discussions are unlikely to resume soon.

Denise Fisher is a visiting fellow at Australian National University’s Centre for European Studies. She was an Australian diplomat for 30 years, serving in Australian diplomatic missions as a political and economic policy analyst in many Australian missions in Asia, Europe and Africa, including as Australian Consul-General in Nouméa, New Caledonia (2001-2004). She is the author of France in the South Pacific: Power and Politics (2013). This article was first published by the Lowy Institute’s The Interpreter and is republished by Asia Pacific Report with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

I read this article quoting Christopher Luxon as follows: “We’ve been to many places where marginal seats are and we’re getting good movement.” (Luxon talks to media amid election result limbo fears, NZ Herald, 7 Oct 2023).

He has this misplaced narrative around marginal seats. I have also heard talk in mainstream media circles that appears to give emphasis to ‘marginal seats’. And I heard one explainer on RNZ claiming MMP as a system in which sixty percent of seats in Parliament are elected in electorates, with the remaining ‘list seats’ being determined in proportion to the party vote. The system described in the previous sentence is not MMP (‘Mixed Member Proportional‘); it’s SM (‘Supplementary Member‘). SM was one of the rejected voting methods in the 1992 referendum. Christopher Luxon was just 22 years old at the time of that referendum. I hope he voted; though the low turnout suggests he might not have.

MMP: Mixed Member Proportional

General elections do two things: elect parties to the sovereign Parliament, from which governments are formed; and choose people as local representatives in that Parliament.

The principal purpose of a general election is to determine how many MPs will represent each party; the secondary ‘fine-tuning’ purpose is for the people, rather than the party leaders, to have popular local influence over which people will represent each party in Parliament.

Under MMP – and noting the principal purpose, to elect parties to Parliament in proportion to their popular support nationwide – the concept of ‘marginal electorate’ is entirely meaningless. Wasted votes for very small parties aside (and many people want to increase the number of wasted votes by removing one of the present qualification rules underpinning MMP in New Zealand), parties are elected to Parliament on the basis of the nationwide support for each party. End of story.

Electorates are irrelevant to this nationwide component of the election process. Thus (and assuming no wasted votes) if National gets forty percent of the nationwide party vote, they get forty percent of the seats (ie 48 out of 120) in Parliament. It doesn’t matter whether votes come from Whanganui or Whangamomona; each vote for National counts the same. Parties need to focus on marginal voters, not marginal electorates. (I suspect that there are more marginal voters in West Auckland and in West Christchurch than in Whanganui.)

Under MMP, electorates are an administrative reality in terms of the organisation of the election, facilitating the gathering of votes for the nationwide count. The secondary purpose of the election, people deciding who their local representatives will be, does require electorates; hence the secondary vote – the local vote – is called the electorate vote. The primary vote – the party vote – is a national vote in a national election. The ancillary electorate vote is a local vote in a local election; very much like a vote for a Mayor.

(There is one exception to this situation in New Zealand in 2023. Voters in the Waiariki electorate will cast an electorate vote which could affect nationwide party representation. This adjustment would occur if the sitting Te Pāti Māori representative is defeated by the Labour Party representative.)

In MMP, a large proportion of the list MPs are ‘minor party’ representatives, because the point of MMP is to compensate for the disproportionate way FPP voting discriminates against smaller parties.

SM: Supplementary Member

Under SM, often confused with MMP, most list MPs would be from the ‘major parties’ – usually two major parties – and a top position on the party list would be a political sinecure (much as a safe electorate would also be a sinecure).

‘Supplementary Member’ is a non-proportional electorate-based system. Its core is the old misnamed first-past-the-post system (‘FPP’). (Misnamed because, in each electorate, there is no winning post. Rather, candidates who are ahead when ‘the whistle blows’ or ‘the music stops’ are declared winners whether or not they have reached some metaphorical ‘post’.) SM differs from FPP though, in that a separate minority group (eg forty percent) of MPs are added to the electorate MPs; and this smaller separate group is determined by a second party proportional vote. Under SM, smaller parties are guaranteed token but not proportional representation.

Under the SM system, the primary vote is the electorate vote; and the supplementary vote is the party vote.

Informed and Misinformed Voting Strategies

Under MMP (or at least under ‘informed MMP’), voters first decide on their preferred party. Then they reflect on who they prefer to be their local MP, knowing that the local MP decision does not influence the total number of MPs their preferred party will get. They will know that, in for example Mt Roskill, if Carlos Cheung wins the electorate vote, then some other National Party candidate will miss out on becoming a ‘list MP’.

All elections involve strategic voting. (Under the old ‘FPP’ system, people in ‘safe seats’ voted for the candidate of their preferred party, knowing in advance who the electorate winner would be.) In marginal electorates, people would vote against the candidate representing the party they did not want to win the nationwide election. The actual election only took place in these ‘marginal seats’; indeed, there is still a marginal-seat mindset among people, such as Christopher Luxon it would seem, who should know better. So, in most marginal electorates, anti-National voters would vote for their Labour candidates; even voters who really preferred their Green (or Values Party as the Greens were then) candidate.

With MMP, informed voters normally vote for their preferred party. But they are cognisant of the coalition options. So they might vote for a less-preferred party that has a chance of participating in government if their actual preferred party is unlikely to be in government; that is, they may choose the ‘lesser evil’ option, making a likely government they don’t really want ‘less bad’. In 2020, some people who preferred National over Labour nevertheless voted Labour in order to minimise the influence of the Green Party in government. For those voters, the Green Party was the ‘greater evil’ and the Labour Party was the ‘lesser evil’.

Another form of strategic party voting is to ‘take out insurance’; to vote for a moderating ‘centre’ party. In 2002 that insurance took the form of United Future. In 1996, 2005 and 2017 that ‘hand-brake’ insurance took the form of a vote for New Zealand First.

Under an informed MMP-mindset, electorate votes would generally be for the candidates who would best represent local interests in the national Parliament; regardless of political party. Because there is no cost to voters’ preferred parties. We note that cities over the country have had long-running ‘centre-right’ Mayors despite having mainly ‘centre-left’ MPs. And vice versa. This is also how it should be in MMP electorates.

There is another form of strategic voting in electorates. In particular an electorate-candidate with a low party-list ranking (or not even on the list) can, if elected, displace a candidate who would otherwise become a list MP. Voters may vote for electorate-candidates with this intention in mind. An example might be a National party voter in Ohariu choosing to vote for Labour’s Greg O’Connor as a means to displace someone like David Parker, Andrew Little, Willow Jean Prime, or Ayesha Verrall. Or a Labour Party voter in Ohariu voting for National’s Nicola Willis as a means of helping Parker, Little, Prime and Verrall stay in Parliament.

Misinformed voters are likely to vote as if 2023 is going to be an SM election. They will firstly consider their electorate vote as if it was a Party Vote. They will vote for candidates representing their preferred parties; or against the candidates representing their detested parties, by voting for the party candidate most likely to defeat the candidate for the party they want to lose.

Then they will turn their attention to the party vote, which they understand to being a separate poll to choose list MPs. If such voters want a single-party government they will vote ‘two ticks’, for the party as well as the candidate of that party. Or they may want insurance, voting for a minor-party coalition partner. Or they may vote for the minor party which they really prefer, given the FPP belief that voting for the electorate candidate of a minor party is a wasted vote.

The SM/FPP mindset mainly affects the electorate vote, treating it as a party vote rather than a personal vote. In addition, SM might exaggerate minor-party support in the party-vote; some voters might use the supplementary vote to compensate for the disproportionality of an FPP-type electorate vote.

Predictions

The table below gives my stylised – meaning possibly exaggerated, to make a point – predictions for certain electorates for the 14 October election. I focus on the Labour Party, given that it is the present governing party and that it will lose sitting MP candidates. I make predictions based on the presence or absence of MMP awareness; with MMP awareness favouring popular local candidates regardless of party affiliations, especially sitting MPs. MMP thinking minimises changes in electorate MPs, meaning that there can be big swings among major-party list MPs instead.

And I make predictions for SM/FPP thinking. FPP-style voting yields big electorate MP swings, leaving relatively stable major-party list representation. (In practice, some voters will probably make informed MMP electorate choices, and others will make misinformed electorate choices. So the actual election result is likely to be an average of the two scenarios shown.) And I go on to make a prediction of the result if the voting system actually was SM.

In the Table below, I am basing my predictions on what the recent polls are saying about the parties; namely that Labour will get 26 percent of the vote and 33 seats in the new Parliament. (To keep the table as short as possible, I have excluded any electorates for which I think the Labour candidate will not win.)

Under MMP-informed voting I am predicting 27 electorate MPs for Labour and 6 list MPs. Under SM/FPP-informed electorate voting, I am predicting 16 electorate MPs for Labour and 17 list MPs. Some people – eg Kieran McAnulty – would be an electorate MP under the first scenario and a list MP under the second scenario.

Table of Stylised Predictions for ‘Labour electorates’:

From the table above, these six electorate candidates would get through under MMP-informed electorate voting, but not under SM/FPP-informed electorate voting: Utikere, Leavasa, Boyack, Wood, Twyford, Leary.

And these six would get elected under misinformed electorate voting (ie SM/FPP-informed) but not under MMP-informed electorate voting: Little (List 12), Parker (L13), Radhakrishnan (L15), Andersen (L17), Luxton (L19), Salesa (E).

So I am saying that, if voters vote in the electorates as they would have done under FPP, then Little, Parker, Radhakrishnan, Andersen, Luxton and Salesa would be in instead of Utikere, Leavasa, Boyack, Wood, Twyford, Leary. No prizes for working out which of those sixsomes the Labour leadership would prefer.

I would also mention that under SM-informed voting in an MMP election, the party vote for Labour (and National) would probably be a percentage-point or two lower than under MMP-informed party voting. In my table, that would cost Brooking and Russell their seats.

I would also note that if Labour’s support falls to 22% (about that of National in 2002) and New Zealand First mops up the populist vote, then Labour would be down to zero list MPs in an MMP-informed election and 11 list MPs in an election in which the electorate adopts SM/FPP voting strategies. In an MMP-informed election with the Labour vote at 22%, then Robertson, Tinetti, Verrall, Jackson, Prime and Rurawhe would also be gone.

If it really was an SM election

If SM was actually the voting system, and on present polling – I would predict: 28 MPs for Labour (16 electorate, 12 list); 11 MPs for Green (3 electorate, 8 list); 4 list MPs for NZ First, 2 MPs for Te Pāti Māori (1 electorate, 1 list); 5 MPs for Act (all list); 70 MPs for National (52 electorate, 18 list). National would win outright with less than 40% of the party vote. Christopher Luxon would like that. Many MPs – both electorate and list – would consider themselves to be safe; many more than under MMP.

Green Party, Act, TOP and Māori

My prediction this time is for the Green Party to win three electorate seats in an MMP-informed election (Auckland Central, Wellington Central, Panmure-Otahuhu) and two electorates in a misinformed MMP election (Auckland Central, Wellington Central). The incumbent MP, Chloe Swarbrick, should win Auckland Central either way. Further, I believe that circumstances conspire in Wellington Central, where the overseas vote may play a vital role. And Ofiso Collins, standing for the Greens in Panmure-Otahuhu, could win through a personal vote, given his prominence as a popular Auckland mayoral candidate.

Under MMP-savvy voting, TOP should win Ilam. The TOP leader there – Raf Manji – is a popular Christchurch city councillor; though a vote for Manji could reduce the total number of National or Labour MPs, given that TOP party votes would no longer be wasted. And, under MMP-informed voting, ACT should win Tamaki as well as Epsom. In this case, a vote for the Act candidate (Brooke Van Velden) could have no impact on the number of national or Labour MPs.

Under my MMP-informed predictions, which do not include any seats for TOP, Labour retains most of its Māori caucus, and gains new MPs in the Māori electorates. So, given the likely presence in Parliament of 4 or 5 Te Pāti Māori MPs, and Green Māori MPs as well, the Parliament will have probably its largest Māori representation ever. We note that the first three on the New Zealand First list are all Māori, as is the leader of Act. National will be conspicuously the least-Māori party.

Back to Christopher Luxon.

If Mr Luxon is campaigning too much for the electorate vote in ‘marginal electorates’, then he is potentially missing out on party votes in the parts of the country he is barely seen in. That might not bother me, but should bother him. West Auckland comes to mind here.

Postscript: Trifecta Voting

One way to distance ourselves from SM/FPP thinking would be to introduce trifecta voting in all elections; national and local, electorate and party.

Under trifecta voting, in each ballot voters choose up to three candidates or parties, numbering them as first, second and third preference.

Under trifecta party voting, there would be almost no wasted party votes, because almost all voters would include a successful party as one of their three preferences. Unsuccessful first preference votes would be discarded in favour of voters’ second preferences. And, if still not electing a party, the second preference would yield to the third preference. Same thing for candidate voting. Votes for eliminated candidates would transfer until at least one candidate had sufficient of the vote to be elected.

*******

Keith Rankin (keith at rankin dot nz), trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand.

Unionists and political activists are among seven prominent women who have brought a lawsuit against the Fiji government challenging new electoral laws requiring them to use their birth certificate names to be registered as voters.

The seven are former government minister Bernadette Rounds Ganilau, politicians Priscilla Singh and Seni Nabou, teacher and community worker Adi Davila Toganivalu, unionists Dr Elizabeth Reade Fong and Salote Qalo and Yasmin Nisha Khan.

They have filed a constitutional redress action against the Attorney-General and the Supervisor of Elections, challenging changes passed by Parliament earlier this year to the Electoral (Registration of Voters) Act and the Interpretation Act.

The seven are challenging the requirement that citizens must only use the name on their birth certificates for voting and other official purposes — including for official identification documents.

Under the new laws, people who wished to use their married or adopted names for these purposes must formally change their names on their birth certificates.

In their action, the applicants say they believe the new laws have a disproportionate, adverse impact upon married women compared with other groups. An estimated 100,000 women are believed to be affected by the law.

The matter was called in the High Court in Suva yesterday before Chief Justice Kamal Kumar.

The Chief Justice gave directions for the filing of affidavits and fixed the case for hearing on February 24.

The applicants are represented by Munro Leys partner and former Supervisor of Elections Jon Apted.

Lawyer Devanesh Sharma, of R Patel and Co, represents the Attorney-General and the SOE.

Fiji faces a general election next year.

Republished from The Fiji Times with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Fiji’s pposition National Federation Party leader Professor Biman Prasad told Parliament yesterday that the Electoral Registration of Voters (Amendment) Bill was the product of dictatorship, pseudo-democracy and the “my way or the highway” approach to governance in a bid to ensure continuity of FijiFirst rule in the country.

Professor Prasad said the changes did not even remotely resemble the flaws exposed by the High Court about registration of names of voters after a successful case in the Court of Disputed Returns by SODELPA MP Niko Nawaikula.

Prasad said Nawaikula’s nominations for election candidature had been duly accepted and approved by the Supervisor of Elections twice, in 2014 and 2018.

He said the Supervisor of Elections failure rate in removing candidates for elections as well as members of Parliament was alarming.

“This Bill is the product of dictatorship, pseudo-democracy and my way or the highway approach to governance in order to ensure continuity of the FijiFirst rule in this country,” he said.

Attorney-General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum said in 2015, the Supervisor of Elections, Mohammed Saneem had been asked by the Pacific Islands Forum to lead the observer mission group to Bougainville, in 2016 he had been part of the MSG Observer Mission to the Vanuatu snap elections and in 2017 he had been part of the observer mission to the Tongan elections.

He said Saneem also held elections in a “fair and credible” manner.

Parliament yesterday passed the Bill, which now requires Fijians to use the name as stated in their birth certificate and no other aliases.

The Bill, which has now become an Act of Parliament, was tabled by Attorney-General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, and fast-tracked under Standing Order 51.

Debating legislation in Parliament before the vote yesterday, Sayed-Khaiyum referred to the ruling of the Court of Disputed Returns last month in the case of Nawaikula.

He said Nawaikula’s case had a significant impact on the National Register of Voters, and the changes to the Electoral Registration of Voters Amendment Bill were necessary to ensure people registered with the names on their birth certificate.

Sayed-Khaiyum told Parliament that in its ruling, the court had stated that the law did not specifically require the use of birth certificate names and for the purpose of the registration as a voter allows the use of names other than the birth certificate name.

He said neither the court nor the legal counsel had considered the practical implications of such a strict literal reading of the law, and it was not brought to the court’s attention and therefore, they did not expect to make a ruling on that.

Fiji faces a general election next year.

Republished from The Fiji Times with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz