Silver lining in Vanuatu MP scandal?

Transcript

A specialist in Vanuatu governance issues says the scandal surrounding government MPs could be a rare opportunity to finally stabilise the country's politics.

The country is in the grips of a political storm over the decision by parliament's speaker to pardon himself and 13 other government MPs who were last week convicted of bribery in his capacity as acting president.

The Australian National University's Siobhan McDonnell, a former legal advisor to a previous Vanuatu government, says it's long been known that government is regularly changed through the exchange of money and gifts, but last weeks Supreme Court ruling has laid that bare.

She told Jamie Tahana public outrage at both the verdict and pardonings could propel much-needed constitutional change.

SM: There is a general understanding of Vanuatu politics operating through these layers of patronage so in the lead-up to elections there are a lot of gifts that are handed out, there are lot of bags of rice, there's a lot of shells of kava bought and there are a lot of payments that are made at the same time. What we're seeing now is a transparent example of the scale of money that is passing through people's hands and bank accounts in order to change government so Vanuatu is very politically unstable, governments change regularly through these motions of no confidence and what we're seeing is literally the money trail being traced to show where the money is coming from and how it's being used to change government.

JT: And has that been done before?

SM: Not to this degree so this is the first time that there's been a large scale prosecution like this in Vanuatu. Historically
it's been very difficult to get prosecutions happening so even in this case you saw attempts by the government to interfere in the prosecution process so it's quite remarkable that this has gone to court and the next kind of layer of events of the acting president trying to pardon himself has been another kind of layer of abuse of executive power really.

JT: With that all laid bare for the public and with this sentencing next Thursday you suggest this could be a real turning point for Vanuatu, an opportunity that hasn't really been seen before.

SM: Well the implications from sentencing are pretty interesting so if the sentence is greater than a two year period the people who are sentenced, the current members of parliament will not be able to stand up in the next election and that has really profound implications for politics. And I think there's a second set of conversations that are now happening around how perhaps the political process and the constitution might need to be reformed in order to make sure that there's more stability in politics and in order to make sure that some of those powers and executive functions are more clearly outlined in the constitution.

JT: What kind of changes would need to be made?

SM: That's a good question and it's one that I think would need a lot of consultation but I think there is definitely an avenue for thinking around various models that would involve parliament being voted in and that government being elected for a period of time before you can have any motions of no confidence. The second thing I would say is that having read all the powers of the president the way many other lawyers have, I think there could be more detail added in to that section. I think the ombudsman's powers in the constitution need to be bolstered so that would bear looking at again. I don't think there needs to be major changes to the constitution but I think this really presents an opportunity to have a good look back and say well "you know it's been 35 years, what kind of constitutional arrangements do people in Vanuatu want".

JT: Even if this sentencing does go through there's still two thirds of the parliament left so what are the chances of this actually being pushed through to get to the point where they review the constitution?

SM: I think there is a lot of political momentum around these issues at the moment. I guess what has happened as a result of the court case is people have seen the way money politics works and they said "we need a better style of politics". This is not operating the way that the founding fathers imagined it would when they wrote the constitution. Political parties are massively fragmented in Vanuatu now and there is a kind of horse trading that goes on because of that, that needs to shift.