This episode explores the state of democracy in the Pacific, focusing on a joint report by International IDEA and the Australia National University's Department of Pacific Affairs. The report, released in mid-2025, assesses data from Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu. It extends the discussion to all Pacific nations on the six themes of grassroots democracy, scale, localised politics, cohabitation, political marginalisation and democratic innovation.
This episode explores the state of democracy in the Pacific, focusing on a joint report by International IDEA and the Australia National University's Department of Pacific Affairs (DPA). The report, released in mid-2025, assesses data from Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu. It then looks at all Pacific nations, covering the six themes of grassroots democracy, scale, localised politics, cohabitation, political marginalisation and democratic innovation.
After an introduction by International IDEA Director for Asia and the Pacific Leena Rikkila Tamang and DPA head Sonia Palmieri, three ANU Pasifika researchers, Michael Kabuni, Anna Naupa and Romitesh Kant, discuss the findings.
Metrics like voter turnout and constituency funds are analysed, highlighting challenges such as gender representation and civil society participation. The conversation also touches on the role of international donors and the need for more research to understand Pacific democracy effectively.
Assessing the State of Democracy in the Pacific - download the International IDEA / DPA report
The Global State of Democracy 2025: Democracy on the Move - download the International IDEA report
Unspoken Rules of Politics: Uncovering the Motivations of Voters in Vanuatu's Elections - download DPA report
Refereeing democracy: judiciary, parliament and executive in 50 years of Papua New Guinea politics - article by Michael Kabuni
Voting Methods and Their Distribution in Papua New Guinea - DPA discussion paper by Thiago Cintra Oppermann, Nicole Haley and Colin Wiltshire
Anna Naupa 00:00
The further we get away from that critical moment of history, which is independence, we start to see political party fragmentation, and this is when you can start to see this hyper personalization of politics. And one could ask is that just the nature of post colonial politics and democracies, we all know that the beauty of democracy is it's always evolving. We're always learning. We're always experimenting.
Amita Monterola 00:27
Welcome to Devpolicy Talks, the podcast of the Development Policy Centre. We're part of the Crawford School of Public Policy here at the Australian National University. I'm Amita Monterola, and I'd like to acknowledge that this episode was produced on the lands of the Ngunnawal and Ngambri people here in Canberra, Australia.
In this our 12th season, we're bringing you a mix of interviews, event recordings, and in depth features on topics central to our research Australia's overseas aid development in Papua New Guinea and the Pacific and other regional and global development issues.
One issue that we seek to highlight here at the Centre is that the Pacific Region is often underrepresented in global datasets, and this includes those tracking matters of governance and yet, the diverse experiences of Pacific countries offer valuable insights into the meaning and practice of democracy.Greater understanding of these experiences are not only crucial for supporting democracy in the region, but also helpful for understanding democracy everywhere.
So here at Devpolicy Talks, we are pleased to feature an important collaboration between International IDEA and our colleagues at ANU's Department of Pacific Affairs. They released a joint report in mid 2025 titled Assessing the State of Democracy in the Pacific. A link to the full report is in our show notes.
Today we're going to hear about how this partnership came about. Then you'll hear a lively discussion between three Pasifika researchers, Anna Naupa from Vanuatu, Michael Kabuni from Papua New Guinea and Romitesh Kant from Fiji as they debate the report's themes. Finally, we'll turn to how the report's findings will inform future work.
First, Leena Rikkila Tamang, the director for Asia and the Pacific for international idea, explains how the project started.
Leena Rikkila Tamang 02:48
Since 2017 International IDEA, the global state of democracy initiative, has been producing a yearly report analysing global, regional and national trends in democratic performance, and Pacific region is often underrepresented in global analysis, especially when it comes to governance. And the same was true in our reports, which draw heavily on the democracy indices developed by IDEA. The island countries usually appear only briefly, perhaps a paragraph or two. And so we wanted to take a deeper look at democracy in the Pacific, drawing on not only the data we have, but also on the qualitative research. And we knew that ANU's Department of Pacific Affairs has a wealth of expertise on this topic and an impressive team, director Sonia Palmieri and colleagues like Romitesh Kant, George Carter, Kerryn Baker and all the others. And from our side, the work was led by Anna Dziedzic, also bringing strong expertise on the Pacific, particularly in relation to judiciary and constitutional histories. So we had every reason to believe that collaboration would be productive and would spark good discussions. And that's exactly what happened at our very first meeting, we got into lively debate about what the global state of democracy indices show versus what Pacific researchers see on the ground. Their view was that the indices paint too positive a picture of the Pacific, that many of their challenges run deeper than what the data captures. So that tension immediately gave us a very rich starting point. And secondly, both organisations share the goal of producing policy relevant knowledge to strengthen democratic governance in the Pacific.
Amita Monterola 05:15
The report is divided into two distinct chapters. The first chapter presents data from 2018 and 2023 for four Pacific countries, Fiji Papua, New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu. Rikkila Tamang explains why the data set is so small.
Leena Rikkila Tamang 05:36
A few words about the how these indices were developed, because the indices is grounded in our own concept of democracy, and our definition is broad and simple. Democracy is about popular control over public decision making and decision makers and equality among citizens in exercising that control. That is our definition for democracy. And to measure this idea developed the global state of democracy indices organized around four main categories. There is the representation, rights, rule of law and participation, and each category includes several factors. For example, under rights, we look at civil liberties, political equality, but also basic welfare. That is the extent to which citizens can access essential services such as nutrition or social security, health care and education. And these factors then are linked to 154 indicators of democratic performance across 173 countries and covering the period from 1975 to the end of 2025 so the period of the last 50 years. So these indicators come from the world's most credible data sets on democracy and rights, 22 altogether, V-Dem, or the Varieties of Democracy dataset being one of them. And some of the datasets we maintain ourselves, like the Global Voter turnout database, which contributes to indicator on electoral participation, but overall, we are not vested in any single data set. Our focus really is to on applying the state of democracy framework and then identify the most reliable comparable data available. But then there are limitations. The reality is that the complexity of Pacific is really captured in global data sets, and many of them are excluded entirely because of small population size or lack of reliable, consistent data. So at present, the GSOD indices include four Pacific countries, Fiji, Papua, New Guinea, Solomon Island and Vanuatu, and this is because we can only include countries with population over 250,000 for the reasons of global comparability. So many Pacific countries, whether independent or self governing, simply fall below that threshold. So that said, the IDEA global state of democracy report, which this year focuses on migration and can be freely accessed from our website,it doesn't rely solely on the indices. We also draw on our monthly, what we call Democracy Tracker, which compiles updates and analysis from variety of sources covering most of the countries in the world but still the Pacific trends to get only passing mention in the Global Report. And we felt strongly that the region, including countries not captured in the indices, deserved an in depth assessment. Well, it's clear that Pacific democracy, is distinctive and complex, and that global data sets often miss much of that nuance, and more work is needed, but where statistics don't exist or data doesn't exist, then qualitative information from academia, government reports, regional institutions and civil society can fill some of these important gaps, especially relevant for indicators where government data is limited, unavailable or unavailable it is challenging, but necessary, and resources permitting something that IDEA and other global democracy observers should continue to work on. For this report, we applied what we called a Pacific lens to democracy, so beyond the GSOD framework. This report examines six specific themes, grassroots democracy, smallness, localised politics, cohabitation, political marginalisation and democratic innovation. And that's because we want to really use the data we have, but also then rely on qualitative research.
Amita Monterola 12:12
The ANU Department of Pacific Affairs, known as DPA, put together a team of researchers, including Kerryn Baker, George Carter, David Oakeshott, Thiago Oppermann, Sonia Palmieri, Anouk Ride and Colin Wiltshire. The team analysed the GSOD data and contributed the second chapter of the report, which explores the six themes. DPA's Head of Department Sonia Palmieri explains why they were keen to be involved.
Sonia Palmieri 12:54
DPA does, and has had, for a long time, an extensive research agenda on democracy and democratic practice in the Pacific, we've looked at women's political participation, and we're broadening that out, obviously, to more inclusive participation. So thinking about the role of people with disabilities, young people, LGBTQI populations. We have for a long time looked at electoral administration, so the really technical aspects of polling booths, voter rolls, the way in which boundaries are distributed. We have some people who are really fascinated by those kinds of questions. And then we have people interested in what you might call institutional architecture and performance, so looking at political parties, parliaments, and in the relationship between the voter and those institutions, and how you can see where the claims are made and the kind of the finances behind that. So we were able to use that body of research, to extend the very basic quantitative analysis that is collated in the process of the Global State of Democracy. We wanted to be able to show that there were maybe other ways of understanding democracy that are practiced in the Pacific that are not just useful to the Pacific, but to the broader concept of democracy that then IDEA could use, and other international organisations could use. We hope that it's been a two way dialogue.
Amita Monterola 14:39
In the interest of furthering dialogue on the topic Devpolicy Talks invited three mid-career researchers into the studio. The discussion includes reflections on the Global Report, the global state of democracy data for the four countries and the six themes: grassroots democracy, the size of Pacific nations, localised politics, cohabitation, political marginalisation and democratic innovation.
Anna Naupa 15:22
My name is Anna Naupa. I'm from Vanuatu. I'm a PhD candidate at the ANU School of Culture, History and Language, and I have written and followed a lot of Vanuatu politics and elections over the last 15 or plus years.
Michael Kabuni 15:39
My name is Michael Kabuni. I'm a PhD student at the Australian National University's Department of Pacific Affairs. I have researched and written on PNG politics, parties and elections. But my PhD topic is on anti money laundering regimes in Papua New Guinea.
Romitesh Kant 16:01
I'm Romitesh, Romitesh Kant from Fiji. My PhD looks at masculinities and political leadership in Fiji as focusing on political parties and how it promotes and privileges men in leadership. And my research, generally speaking, focuses on Fiji politics, constitutional design.
Amita Monterola 16:23
I'd start off with a very general question asking you about, what does democracy look like in your part of the Pacific?
Anna Naupa 16:30
So what does democracy look like in Vanuatu? Vanuatu ranks quite highly. Actually, it's the highest ranking Pacific nation on the Global State of Democracy report, it's higher even than the US. And so what's really interesting about this, this report and assessing the state of democracy in the Pacific, is how it puts quite a bit of a different picture around how we commonly talk about Vanuatu. Often, Vanuatu has talked a lot about having high political instability. We know that Australia labelled our part of the world, together with Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Fiji, Vanuatu, the arc of instability. Yes, that's right, Michael, the arc of instability. And so when that's kind of the picture that's put or the narrative around the way our democracy is, it's really interesting to then see how it's assessed and stands in a global index. And that's the case for when high turnover is actually also high levels of democratic practice, because when people are unhappy with their leaders, they seek to change them. And isn't that what we want from our democracy?
Amita Monterola 17:39
That's a very good point. Did you want to talk a little bit about how customary law or customary practice has an impact in Vanuatu?
Anna Naupa 17:51
The Vanuatu constitution is very clear that we are a parliamentary democracy and the conversations that established our constitution that produce the type of electoral system we have, the type of parliamentary system we have, was very clear that there is a separation of kastom and politics. And you hear this in popular discourse and people will be very clear, customary practice is not political practice. There is, of course, blurry lines between that, particularly when people wear multiple hats. So officially, they're separate. In practice, when you look at the political ecosystem, the customary realm is very much a part of how politicians either succeed or fail, because of the proximity with the people and the systems, and it's also perhaps why, at times, we often don't see as many female candidates. But that is not necessarily because of kastom, even though that's often what it's talked about. That's also the nature of the political the electoral system and the way in which candidates can become successful, and that's a much longer conversation about that, but that's where I think in the global state of democracy report, and particularly this one around assessing the Pacific aspects of that report, I think what's very good to see is that nuance comes out, and it looks at this idea of cohabitation, which I thought was a really interesting term. I hadn't actually heard it before so that's kind of one of the first things I read in the report. And it's really talking about not hybrid versions of politics and custom but how there's these multiple systems working together. I usually talk about plurality. That's what a lot of people talk about, but this Assessing the State of the Pacific Democracy report talks about it as cohabitation, and how political outcomes are actually the result of a much bigger ecosystem than just that narrow electoral space.
Amita Monterola 20:00
Romitesh, would you like to take up how you see democracy looking in your part of the Pacific?
Romitesh Kant 20:06
This idea of cohabitation I found quite interesting as well, because, when you talk about hybrid systems, you put the modern or Western political system as the benchmark, and then you measure traditional systems against this background benchmark and say whether it fits or not that's based on human values, human rights, and these metrics that our systems don't. And I think cohabitation is very interesting concept reading this report, because then it puts it on an equal footing, and it just says that it cohabits this ecosystem, this political ecosystem, and sometimes it works well, sometimes it doesn't. And I think in Fiji, it has shown that democracy in itself. I think I'd like to say that democracy in Fiji has been resilient as opposed to the narrative that, given our coup culture and history of usurping democratically elected governments, that democracy is unstable, because after every coup, we've returned to democracy in some form. I think, in our 56 year history, democracy has been usurped three times now, and we've had four constitutions, by my count three to six coups. We tend to take six coups as the signifier because every coup usurps a democratic, elected government and then abrogates the Constitution and brings in a new constitution. So we've never had a peaceful transfer of power in our 56 years. This is the first time since the 2022 election that a peaceful transfer of power will happen, okay? Or there's these prospects of that democracy might be consolidating because there won't be a military coup. Elections are scheduled for second half of next year, some time in the second half, and it seems like this government will serve out its full term for the first time. So that's 2026, and this is also a very reform minded government. And I think the context is that we've had a 16 year authoritarian rule since 2006, the 2013 Constitution brought in parliamentary system of governance, but did not bring in democracy. The Constitution in itself, is very authoritarian. There's a lot of executive power. So this government is reform minded in the sense that it wants to, or it proclaims to amend the authoritarian aspects of the Constitution and bring in democracy. But I think it's something that we have to watch carefully on how democracy, constitutionally gets institutionalized in a new kind of way.
Amita Monterola 22:46
Do you think that outsiders have a realistic view of what's going on in Fiji, or do you see that sometimes they're mistaking what's happening?
Romitesh Kant 23:00
I think it's a mixed bag, really. And like Anna said, the sort of classification of Fiji and Southwest Pacific Melanesia as unstable, politically and democratically and the arc of instability narrative does misrepresent what's happening on the ground. Because even when we talk about democracy, we forget that these practices of democracy that takes place at the grassroots level that does not get counted in these or measured in these indices. So examples are, you know, young people are seen as apathetic, but if you look at Fiji and the Pacific within the climate movement, or within the queer movement or within the women's rights movement, democracy is alive because people are participating and forming their own sort of interest groups. And these are not formal in the sense, you know, these are not political party based or formal, institutional but democracy is operating at the grassroots level in very different, very nuanced ways. And sometimes I think these indices actually miss out on the creativity in which Pacific societies have actually implemented participatory, consensus-based systems and norms.
Amita Monterola 24:12
Well, we will talk a little bit more about the civic society space a little bit later, and how some of those groups are interacting in Fiji at the moment, but we'll move on to Michael just on that initial question of what does democracy look like in Papua New Guinea?
Michael Kabuni 24:29
PNG is a classic case of how you use indices and get it wrong. Because every indices you had a time pointed to a country that would not survive right after independence, right, because you didn't have political parties. You had, like, 1000 tribes, 1000 languages, 100 tribes. So you had all the all the indices that points that if you take the global indicator of what's needed for a country to maintain democracy. They didn't meet that all right, but then survive. They just celebrated 50 years of independence. So now you go back and then try to explain, how did this country survive like so that is where you look at layers that are often not considered in the indices. So, for instance, the informal system is basically the backbone that maintains order, right? The tribes, the pastors, so resolve conflicts. So you wouldn't put it down to democracy if you wanted to use the indices to explain how society is thriving. Basically, there isn't one. And then, you know the high rural population's reliance on subsistence farming, for instance, takes away the pressure on central state to provide those goods, right? So, for instance, when COVIED-19 hit Papua New Guinea, society just maintained the normal lifestyle because 85% get their food not from import, export, reliance on the government. So in a way, I think we try to bring this conversation and give credit to democracy and the indices, but it's actually outside of it.
Amita Monterola 26:29
Looking at the report data for each of your three countries, were there things that surprised you or things that reinforced your view where they were benchmarking across the globe?
Anna Naupa 26:44
For Vanuatu, it was pretty much the same over five years in terms of the ranking, except in the area of access to justice, and that's where there was more improvement, if you like. And so that's very encouraging. You know, Vanuatu is known in the region for having a very high respect for the rule of law, for judicial independence. We had that very famous case in 2014 I think it was where 14 MPs were convicted of bribery and corruption. And you know, we continue to take our MPs to court and hold them to account through those mechanisms. You know, that was really interesting to see. I'm glad there's no regression in five years. But that said, I think the points that Romitesh spoke to about grassroots democracy, what we've spoken about earlier, about the cohabitation, like the broader political ecosystem, the socio-cultural ecosystem that plays into the way politics plays out. And what Michael has said around the very localised versions of where the social contract actually matters, because we look at democracy as that bigger social contract between people and their elected representatives, but there's actually a lot more to play, as Michael's pointed out, around welfare. And so even though the methodology has drawn on all these other indices, there's an ongoing issue around indicator bias and so on. But for the most part, for Vanuatu, seeing how it's pretty aligned, I'm glad there's no regression. I'm glad to see progress on access to justice. Of course, there's other areas we'd like to see more progress on, and I think part of those areas relate to these points about localized politics and grassroots democracy, because that space for other voices in the political environment, particularly civil society, are ones that we need to be very mindful of and continue to nurture.
Amita Monterola 28:43
So I think the indicator there is universal suffrage but of course that could be voting and voter turnout, obviously, engagement in Papua New Guinea and voter turnout is a very interesting issue. We can talk about that in a minute about elections. But were there anything that that jumped out at you about the report in the indicators?
Michael Kabuni 29:05
Not really. It's almost every report on PNG that comes out, whether it's Corruption Perception Index or State of the Democracy, you without reading it expect a score that has regressed before you actually read it. Okay? So, yeah, I wasn't really surprised with the indicators. I do think there is a bias towards what's going wrong instead of what's right, because I was part of the election observation, three elections, and I did go to places where elections were very safe in the last 2022, elections. So, yeah, my question would be, whose report that we rely on? I was part of, led by the Department of Pacific Affairs, hasn't come out yet, and that was the most comprehensive one, because they had 300 groups across the country. The one that was conducted by Transparency International was on the same day and limited. But then, if you are creating indices, you're looking at what's already publicly available. There are aspects of elections that are not captured, and look at politics, like almost for every indices political instability. For instance, if you go by the number of changes and the challenges to the Prime Minister's position, the indicators might look really bad. Yes, because they had eight challenges to Prime Minister's position just after February 2024. That's a lot. But did that destabilize society? And it didn't. So, you know, those are the concerns I would have just looking at indicators, standardising scores across Melanesia or the Pacific, but are not capturing nuances.
Romitesh Kant 30:57
If I can just add on to that as well, is democracy and political stability are not inherently correlation. There's no correlation. Fiji was politically stable under authoritarian regime, right, and it wasn't democratic. And I think what surprised me about the Global Report, not this specific report, the Global Report, is that Fiji scored quite high, higher than I thought, on political participation. Under a period when we had a sort of a dominant party system, bills in parliament were being passed using standing Order 51 which allowed for no public consultation, no parliamentary subcommittee hearings, just a vote in the afternoon. The government produces the bill to Parliament in the morning, in the afternoon, they vote and it becomes an Act. So I was quite surprised with no local government elections, that Fiji's score was quite high when it came to public participation when we knew formal means of public participation were very bad, living in the country. You know, media restrictions were still in place. Kudos to the report, the Pacific report, because it brings them nuance to explaining or contradicting the score by saying, "here's what was happening on the ground'. Parliament was just used as a rubber stamp by the ruling party, no local government elections. Media was still under highly restrictive laws. So I think the Pacific report actually does bring nuance to what was happening on the ground, which I think the Global Report does not because it takes into account voter turnout. And suddenly, oh, Fiji is doing well in public participation. But if you look at what was happening, it wasn't doing well at all. And I think the score was quite high for Fiji generally speaking.
Michael Kabuni 32:39
It's the same when you look at voter turnout in PNG, they turn out so much that they exceed the actual number of names on common roll. Oh, it's a high turnout. But then there are people who are voting those names are not on a common role, yeah.
Amita Monterola 32:55
Do you want to tell us a little bit more about some of those issues with PNG elections, and perhaps also that that link between the localised politics and the people who do get elected, for example, to national parliament?
Michael Kabuni 33:11
Yeah, I was looking at the summary of the report where they tried to link the weak political parties to service delivery. And we'll come to that later. But not everything is connected, just because they seem aligned. The common roll, which the report captures quite well, is very problematic in Papua New Guinea and we've looked at the data. You would have places where the registered number of people, which not are great, but then you have some form of record, right? And then you look at the actual turnout, and that's easy. You get the data from the Electoral Commission, and number of votes cast exceeds the number of common roll [voters] available. We don't know how that's possible, but that happens. That's not universal, because you would have places in the New Guinea islands and Bougainville in particular, where you would have names on the common roll and the vote that's cast is lower than the names on the common roll. So it varies across Papua New Guinea and there was an interesting case with a Global Report, again, where they tried to compare Australia and the Pacific, and Australia had a higher turnout and stuff. Australia has a law that requires you to show up for the election and vote. If you don't, you get penalised for that. Yeah, I don't think that's the right way to measure and rank countries across the region.
Amita Monterola 34:42
I did want to move on to perhaps talk about constituency funds, though, because perhaps that is one interesting way that the localised politics is linked to the parliamentary system. Can you explain how that works in Papua New Guinea that might be a little different to either the Pacific or certainly to Australia?
Michael Kabuni 35:04
So constituency funds were introduced in 1984 and it gets a bad wrap these days, but when it began, it was originally a good reason, because you allocate 10,000 to the local member of government. So that's 10,000 kina. 10,000 kina to the local MP, so that when there's a disaster, for instance, and a bureaucracy is slow in moving, you respond with the 10,000 save lives whilst waiting for the state to respond. And then it evolved from that noble origin to now basically a slush fund. And it's gone beyond slash funds to the private, almost a private fund for the Member of Parliament. So the Member of Parliament has become a project manager, and it's now a walking ATM, that'swhat they call them in PNG. So that links back to the voter turnout, because the Member of Parliament, when it's elected, will have access to average 10 million every year, 10 million Kina, 10 million kina every year, spent at his own discretion, and it ranges from building a classroom to contribution to bride price, whatever it is that a member of parliament thinks is appropriate. It's not acquitted and monitored, so it's a waste of funds. But then how it links back to election is that the voter turnout that you see is because this tribe knows, if their tribal member gets elected, they have access to 10 million. All right, and everyone wants their tribal representative to be in parliaments, because that tribes can now benefit from that. So elections are becoming very intense these days, maybe a bit more intense than when we first started, precisely because of the availability of this fund at the discretion of the members of parliament and every tribe wanting to get their own clansmen in so they can have access to these funds, so the violence then intensifies, because you see this as an access to resources.
Amita Monterola 37:06
Did you say that violence intensifies?
Michael Kabuni 37:08
Yes, my reading of PNG politics is that election is becoming more violent than before, and you go by different metrics. The most crude one is the number of people who died during elections. So it's becoming very violent because there is this culture in PNG politics where people are located to their tribe, right? Service delivery is concentrated to their tribe, or the groups where they've got first preference voting, for instance. Now, if that's the case, then, especially in places where there is intense tribal fighting. And this, not from me, this is public record where members of parliament are arguing on the floor of parliament that their peers are funding the violence. So if we go to elections, I know if your tribal rep gets into parliament, he will use the 10 million to buy weapons. Who will then make your tribe very powerful. And if I have an existing tribal conflict with you, then I'm basically a sitting duck. So then it becomes very competitive, because I want to get my guy in there, whether because I will benefit from the 10 million or I will benefit from ammunitions, but 10 million can buy a lot of things.
Amita Monterola 38:24
I just wanted to highlight that you did say at the beginning you thought it might be a good idea to have these funds that can be distributed quickly in the case of a disaster, that sort of thing. But obviously this is a very different system that we're dealing with now.
Michael Kabuni 38:41
It has evolved so much from what it was intended to be. It's almost every year there's several disasters concurrently across Papua, New Guinea and need a response. But when it becomes 10 million, that's a lot of money.
Amita Monterola 38:57
You said that in the reports, they also look a lot at party politics and stability, or instability. How do you characterise party politics in PNG?
Michael Kabuni 39:11
I don't even think there is party politics in PNG. They're trying to make it. The Pangu Pati had only one Member of Parliament in 2019. From 2019 to 2022 elections, the Pangu Pati grew to become the largest party going into elections. So those Members of Parliament were part of Pangu Pati going into elections were actually not Pangu Pati members. They came from all sorts of political parties. So when you're measuring you know strength of a political party. Do you actually say these members belong to Pangu Pati? Because three years ago it was just a single member of parliament.
Amita Monterola 39:53
Is it more like a coalition then?
Michael Kabuni 39:54
It wasn't even a coalition. It was a single party, but members of parties resigned from their political party, joined Pangu Pati, and then it ballooned into the largest political party going into the election. And after the election, they did win the majority. And it comes to the constituency development funding that we talked about earlier, because the prime minister, who is from the ruling party, would then use this constituency development funding to reward Members of Parliament who are migrating to his party, right? So then do you really say it's a political party, right? That's where the nuances lie.
Amita Monterola 40:31
And so it's about power and money.
Michael Kabuni 40:34
In that case, pretty much it's money keeping discipline within a political party. So you are from the opposition and you criticise the Member of Parliament. The Prime Minister, not directly, but through the appointed Secretary for Finance and Treasury, for instance, and would then direct them to the constituency development funding. Right? So now you are using financial incentive penalizing non-party members and rewarding party members. So there is this motivation for everyone else to migrate towards this party, and then now your Pangu Pati is the largest political party, but it's not because they're subscribing to policies and programs. They're migrating to a way or being penalized. They're migrating to Pangu so they can access funding.
Amita Monterola 41:23
That's certainly a good characterization of how it's working in PNG, which is obviously the most populous nation in the Pacific. I wanted to touch on one of the other report’s themes, which was the size and the scale of nations. Did you want to talk a little bit about how the smaller number of elected representatives works in Vanuatu?
Anna Naupa 41:50
Vanuatu is not as populous as Papua New Guinea, but what we do share are hyper personalised politics, and that's the nature of the way in which local and politics. Can you use politics in a non-political term? I mean it in a sense of social organisation, okay? Right. So units, political communities we have because of our customary systems that we've had for generations. They are our political communities, and there's protocols and processes around that. And then when you overlay that with a national political system to elect people and elect representatives into a national House of Parliament, for example, we're dealing with another layer of political community. So when I think about that idea of size and scale for Vanuatu, that hyper personalization is something that you see throughout because not only because of the population size, but also because of the nature of our social organisation. When I think about the political party system, and you know I was listening closely to Michael's characterisation of the situation in Papua New Guinea and how you said, Michael, like, "it's not really a party, it's just people coming to it for a reason" and that's the same in Vanuatu. There's the party system itself is not that robust. It was at the turn of independence. It needed to be very strong and firm and robust in its system, because that was part of the process. And what we see, like you had the Pangu Pati in Papua New Guinea, with the Vanua'aku Pati in Vanuatu, and you see these really strong parties. And then as the further we get away from that critical moment of history, which is independence, we start to see political party fragmentation. And this is when you can start to see this hyper-personalisation of politics, and one could ask is that just the nature of post colonial politics and democracies. We all know that the beauty of democracy is it's always evolving. We're always learning. We're always experimenting.
Amita Monterola 44:15
Can you give us an example of how hyper-personalised practices impact on the norms of the parliament in Vanuatu?
Anna Naupa 44:28
Like Michael spoke about tribes really wanting to access the constituency fund. We have a similar fund, not at that scale. We have a much smaller economy. Therefore, what we call our MP allocations are about 5 million Vatu. That's about 60,000 Australian dollars a year. Now that is possibly where Papua New Guinea started off. That's still a substantial amount of money for the same reasons that it was a way to expedite community development, and whether it's water supplies and so on, but that's only one part of the access to resources, state resources that can help with community development. So when voters see that there is potential for their representative to access additional resources in addition to the MP allocation amount, then they really push them to be on the government side. So they see the government side of Parliament as having greater access to all the resources of the country, and therefore they want them to be there. Now that's where the coalitions become very, shall we say, fragile. They're fragile coalitions, because all it takes is one to say, I don't want to be a back bencher in this government. I want to be a minister, because as a minister, I get to have access to a whole ministerial budget, plus my Allocation Fund, plus I can direct and influence programs towards my island or towards my community. And so communities put a lot of pressure on MPs to move. And we have this in Bislama. It's called fasim blo jam jam. It's like you jump around, basically, and you move, you party hop. And it was becoming such a problem, that was part of that picture of Vanuatu's political instability, that there was a referendum that took place in May 2024, which was asking a question to amend the Constitution, to fix political affiliation once people are elected into office, into parliament, so that they do not jump jump, they do not party hop but they stick with their party, even if your party ends up in opposition, considered to be the poor cousin, because it only gets the MP Allocation Fund. It doesn't get all the other resources. The intent, therefore, is to say you stick with what you've what you've been voted in for, you don't get to just move around. And it's then trying to prompt political party systems to become much stronger within their own structures. Rather than people moving, they're fixed to that party for one political term, one parliamentary term.
Amita Monterola 47:12
I was going to ask you a little bit about how women fit into the picture here. Do you want to talk about it in the context of hyper-personalisation. Or do you think this is a separate issue?
Anna Naupa 47:24
It's a really important issue to talk about, and it's a really complicated one that I don't think any of us have ever quite gotten to the bottom of. So we've had seven female MPs in the history of Vanuatu. That's actually pretty good in the scheme of things, when it is hyper-masculine, right? So we have to think about it in the sense of actually, that's pretty impressive when it's been primarily a male domain in national politics. But that hyper-personalisation also works for women. So for example, in 2008, we had two female MPs elected in one island, because that island knew that these were the women that were delivering. They were doing the work that for the community development, they would go get the resources, and that's who they wanted. And so it works in that way, in terms of putting of women successfully entering parliament. The flip side to hyper-personalisation is then when you're too close, and therefore perhaps family history or professional histories, education, you name it, can also then work against you, and often for women. That's often cited as well as like, Oh, you shouldn't be in those roles. You should just be in a work or not a public role. It's for men only. So, yeah, it goes both ways. You can also ask, what are the motivations for female candidate to stand or not? And part of that challenge is whether the political party system supports female candidate or targets it. And I know many females who've tried and the parties prevent them so they end up standing as independents, which doesn't always get the same support around the candidature. That's also where it becomes a challenge for women to enter into that political sphere. The question around like the voter behaviors is that even though Vanuatu, in this State of Democracy assessment rates really highly on universal suffrage, we also have shared a similar experience to PNG, where more people turn up than are on the roll. Whether that's getting better, much better now they're doing a good job cleaning up the role, even though we have universal suffrage, this report called Unspoken Rules of Politics in Vanuatu, it writes about how it documents, basically from its research, how the vote is still not secret, and there is a lot of social pressure about who you vote for. So your vote is neither secret nor independent, and women particularly get a lot of pressure from their families and from the community leaders or chiefs to vote according to that tribe, that group, and so that again, if people haven't determined a woman is eligible or she could be... She's totally eligible, but she might not be seen as favorable in terms of accessing resources as this other one, than the votes or group vote.
Amita Monterola 50:32
I might bring you in here because I know that you have looked at similar issues in Fiji, and particularly talking about the choice of whether women might work through the party system as a candidate, or perhaps as a as an independent. How do you see, first of all, the culture around women in politics in Fiji?
Romitesh Kant 50:58
Okay, it's a very interesting question. I'll go back to history kind of thing, not that far, but 2014 elections. So after eight years of military, authoritarian government, 2014 elections, almost all the political parties that contested had female either female leaders or female party presidents by 2018 the landscape had completely shifted. It became the women who actually leading the party, either as party presidents or party leaders, were replaced by men, and a particular type of men, military men, because the idea was in order to use it. Benny Marama, former military commander, former coup leader from power. Dislodge him and his party from power. You needed military men, people with a military mindset to contest by 2022, it was complete. All the political party leaders were men, and in Fiji, then hyper personal. Hyper personalization actually works in a very different way. Our electoral system is single, multi member constituency. So if you look at the 2022, vote statistics, 50% of the votes actually went to the personal tally of party leaders who were all men. And what we see is 2014 we had a high participation or successful sort of women in I think it was 16% by 2018 elections, it was 19% women in parliament by 2022 it halved to 9% so what we see is the way in which elections are contested was about strong men appealing to this idea that this one person has ruled Fiji for 16 years. How do we get rid of him and his party? You got sort of masculinization of party politics where men were preferred. So the number of women contesting the elections from 2014 to 2022 has remained stagnant. So we had 55, 54, 56 but the number of men contesting has increased. So from, I think it was like 100.
Anna Naupa 53:09
And I think that's really interesting, because it's a similar trend in Vanuatu that the number of female candidates for us, it really peaked around 20, in 2016 it was the most women, female candidates we ever had in a national election. I think it was 17. Not the same level of numbers, but for us, very high. And in the last election that we had, just in January 2025, we had less than nine. And what we're seeing is a decline in women putting for standing in campaigns, and part of that is the party system. I think a big part of it is that, the other part, and this is where I think the global state of democracy report, if we look at the sub national level... So there's national level politics, and then there's the sub national and what that's a very different picture in Vanuatu for women, because what we see in the particularly the municipality or local governments, is much more women, and that's because we have temporary special measures and parties will support women in the very local levels of government, just not in the national as much. So that's a quota system, the temporary special measures. And so that's reserved seats, basically. So there's set number of seats, and then there's also open seats. And what we're finding, there's a great report done out of La Trobe University Centre for Human Security, what we're finding is that over time, the temporary special measures of reserve seats are translating into women winning the open seats, not just the reserve, because they're seeing where the action is. So that's a very different picture than from what gets presented when we only look at national politics.
Amita Monterola 54:53
I might just ask you, Michael, to comment on the picture in PNG before we might move on to perhaps changing these narratives. That's one example of an innovation that is actually making a difference. But I just wanted to just quickly get your comment on why women aren't being elected to the National Parliament and whether they might be sitting in leadership positions in other sub national levels.
Michael Kabuni 55:17
Precisely what Anna said. So at the Provincial Assembly, it's an organic law requirement to have a women in a Provincial Assembly, but it's never looked at. Not all provinces do that. But there is really no study that's gone across all provinces to see whether that organic law requirement has been fulfilled and you might have more women. And then you have Bougainville, where there's basically a law where it alternates. So this election, you would have men as chair of the local level government. But then next election would be a woman. So for like around this time, all that shared by women by law, so that's Bougainville. But Bougainville also has a reserve seat requirement, so you at any given election, you would have three women for three main constituencies, and then some are winning the open seats. So I really don't know whether we should put this down to the special measures, and whether that's the impact, or whether it just happened because the people wanted a woman. But when you look across Papua New Guinea, the total [national] seats since independence is like what 12 women ever elected at different times. That's very low. Again, we don't know why people put so much emphasis on culture. And I mean, there's something has to be said about the very low number of women that actually contest the election. And I think a large part of this has to do with what Anna was saying earlier. The people at the very local level, 85% [are rural] and they decide which member gets elected. In the cities, we have, like, what 15-20% of the people? So they look at the NRI, the National Research Institute in Papua, New Guinea, they came up with this idea of unmarked, which is basically, have you ever done something in the community that gives us confidence that when we vote for you, you will go up. Where the actual question lies, because in PNG the people may say, performance of the members of parliament is based on the service delivery, not the quality of the laws and their position on national issues. So then you look at women, and it's a question of resources. So, like, if you want to support women, it's going to be helping them improve their visibility at the local level, because that's what people are looking at. You brought in a water supply. You will probably bring us bigger things if you get in and become member of parliament.
Romitesh Kant 57:55
Can I just add something again, from my research, when I talked to women who did raise their hand to contest, and these were very high achieving women in the private sector, in the development sector as well. And one thing after contesting the 2022 election, one thing they told me is that in the private sector, merit counts for them. But when you come to the public sector or the political realm, suddenly it's how close you are to power. And they basically said sexual harassment is okay in the political realm. In the private realm, you'll be you'll lose your job. Sexist jokes is okay in the political system. So it's basically men and male networks that promote each other in the political party system. And I think, what happens then is then these women who have achieved like they've got Master's degrees, they've been development consultants for 20 years, or acted as CEOs or permanent secretaries, suddenly come into politics and suddenly merit doesn't matter, how much you have to contribute to the political party platform or to public policy that all does not count. So it's these male networks that have manifested itself and embedded itself within the political system that actually matters more. And Fiji has a very different political very institutionalised political party system. But one thing that interested me when I was actually going into the AGMs, I went in with the perception that this is where party platforms and policies get voted in. Not the case in Fiji, political parties are merely vehicles, just like Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands.
Amita Monterola 57:57
I just want to move it on to exactly what you were talking about just then, that there is in many Pacific countries, an elite that have control on those top leadership positions. I mean, one of the ways to broaden out that actual policy decision making to a broader base could be the increased involvement of civil society organisations. The report found the civil society spaces and ability for organisations to operate, that space is shrinking in the Pacific region. First of all, do you agree with that assessment, or would you characterise it a different way?
Anna Naupa 59:51
I agree with that assessment about the shrinkage of civil society participation. When I look at the Vanuatu data, even though we've had marginal improvement between 2018 and 2023 it's still pretty low. But that said, the freedom of expression is still very much alive and well, nurtured and safeguarded in Vanuatu, like literally two weeks ago, or perhaps it was last week, there was a very controversial by law that was passed at a local government level. A provincial government passed a bylaw banning menstruating women from selling food, and there was a public outcry, and people mobilised. They went to social media through civil society groups, even faith based groups, even the Prime Minister, they all mobilized to say, this is absolutely unacceptable, and then it was repealed. Yes, the Prime Minister was involved, but it was the civic engagement, the freedom of expression, that literally, within the space of three days, caused a reversal of decision. And that's pretty, pretty fantastic, when you think globally where could that possibly happen on that scale? And that's perhaps a feature of size and scale, but also, I think, very importantly, the fact that freedom of expression is so highly valued and exercised. That said, the Vanuatu government has been pushing forward on a bill, an NGO Bill, that is seeking to curtail the power of civil society groups, and particularly it's many people who are involved in the consultations around it, from the civil society sector. They highly suspect that the motivation behind the curtailing and through additional regulation of civil society is to prevent any form of international finance for LGBTQI plus groups. And so that is concerning, because obviously, that is not nurturing the space. It is therefore also curtailing other freedoms. And that is a worrying trend that we're seeing, but coming back to what we talked about, hyper-personalisation of politics, including within party systems, the policy, whether it's a party policy, which it often isn't, it's a personal policy that's being presented as a party policy, that's what we're seeing is creeping in to where the civil society space is shrinking. And it's very particular individuals who, for whatever reason, have attentions or have not liked the work of a particular NGO and they're just wanting to shut them down.
Amita Monterola 1:03:15
And you mentioned there also the role of international donors, external donors, on a civic space. Have you got any reflections on that interaction in Vanuatu?
Anna Naupa 1:03:26
Civil society being local is a very important element. But then there is also international NGOs that are often counted as civil society even if they're not local to the country, and that's where the line can get really blurry in terms of how politicians react. So for example, in 2019, there was a public march in Vanuatu that was calling for temporary special measures to have 50% of women's representation in Parliament, and the particularly known Conservative MP from the Island of Tanna accused Oxfam of interfering, and that was because Oxfam is a civil society based organisation. It has local chapters, even as it's international, and that's very blurry what's local versus it's got this international name, and it was locally run, but because it had Oxfam on the name, he said it's foreign interference and influence.
Michael Kabuni 1:04:30
My experience in PNG, civil society is pretty much free. That issue with civil society is mostly to do with funding, having that standing to make an impact, partly because politicians are immune to criticism, so you can put out all the reports, run all the campaigns, it just doesn't seem to make a difference. I think social media is changing that, because with social media, things can go viral, and then Members of Parliament can respond, the Prime Minister responds, and stuff like that. But there is been an attempt to control social media. So social media policy, for instance, and there are two sides to the argument. One is social media has been used by people, for instance, to put private information out there, targeting, you know, people who are vulnerable. So in that way, the argument is that the social media policy will help bring this under control. On the other end is that then becomes the basis for controlling freedom of speech those are critical of the government. So we already have the cyber security law, is what it's called, but it's cyber law, and we have few people who have been arrested. I think one is in jail, as I speak, for criticising one of the ministers. So even though this policy has been advanced, as you know, it will give the infrastructure for authorities to then clamp down on those who are targeting the vulnerable population. But then there is another side that argues that this becomes a political tool weaponized against critics of government.
Amita Monterola 1:06:28
PNG also has a draft media law that's being discussed in parliament by parliamentarians anyway. Do you see this as a challenge to civic society and freedom of speech.
Michael Kabuni 1:06:42
Yeah, I think that's it's a real threat, unlike the social media policy that I'm referring to, because there are content that shouldn't be up on social media that does go up, and Department of information communication technology has been saying we really don't have the infrastructure, the tools to respond to this, unless we have a social media policy so that I can understand, even though there are provisions that I may disagree. But things like the media policy, that's really unnecessary, and there's really only one goal, and that is to curtail critical reporting.
Amita Monterola 1:07:20
Well, that's a good segue to Fiji, because Fiji did have quite a restrictive media policy that was in place till recently. Could you tell us a little bit about that, and either what effect that did have on civil society and their role in politics in general, or how that might be changing now?
Amita Monterola 1:07:44
Yep, so Fiji's had media restrictions or very draconian media law since 2010 and then after 2014 back to the parliamentary sort of system. It became an Act of Parliament. The intention was to actually curtail media reporting under the authoritarian system, but the unintended consequence was that it did not shut down any media organisations but there were huge fines and penalties, $50,000 fine, 10 year jail term, for reporting things that the government deemed and government defined as malicious towards government or destabilising or causing communal harm, broadly defined. The unintended consequence since 2014 has been that journalists and reporters actually started self-censoring what they were publishing in the news because of the fear. So the fear actually played a huge role in sort of the practice of journalism and media freedom. So after the 2022 elections, one of the first steps of the new government was to repeal that role which is good. I think we need to distinguish between, when we say civil society, between the churches and traditional sort of organizations and the NGOs. So Fiji has a very strong framework ecosystem, but a lot of those NGOs actually rely on donor funding.
Amita Monterola 1:09:05
If you could talk a little bit about how these donors can support democracy in the region?
Romitesh Kant 1:09:10
Can I just generally say that the donor landscape is shrinking in terms of funding democracy, human rights work, they are shifting towards more of the socio economic stuff, the more tangible, sort of like funding human rights work or democracy work does not show tangible PR wins, right? It's more socio economic. But also, I think in Fiji, a lot of this funding is actually going towards military, police, state institutions as well. So Fiji is going through electoral reform. Consultations are happening. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission is sitting and doing and these are good stuff, and the government is intent on changing the constitution as well. But most of the civil society, most of the NGOs actually do not have the capacity to engage in this space because to do public, civic, education to do. You know, outreach, advocacy work requires money, okay, and a lot of them are actually funded by international organisations.
Anna Naupa 1:10:09
So in Vanuatu, there's been healthy amounts of NGO funding for service delivery, so whether it's WASH, disaster preparedness, child protection, so very much the social service delivery aspects. And that's highly welcomed, of course, by the government as well, because it's complementary. The space where we see less funding, and as Romitesh says, the shrinking funding is this civic engagement, political rights, anything in that space. And this is because, of course, the idea of wanting to be... It's a very fine line, particularly when a lot of our bilateral partners, like Australia, like New Zealand, like Japan, they're very clear about that they don't want to have any optics of political interference. So it becomes very limited for groups that really want to and are trying to do things like - whether it's Transparency Vanuatu, which is the Vanuatu chapter of the global organisation - funding is very restricted, very limited. And this is the space where it's actually really concerning, because it's where it's really needed. And that's what the Assessing the State of Democracy in the Pacific report, in some of its recommendations around looking at the lens, a Pacific lens on global democracy, I absolutely agree with the report around the need to invest in more research to understand what Pacific democracy looks like on our own terms and in our own approaches to look at these broader ecosystems around not just a political party system or an electoral system or a national parliament, but also all these things that we've talked about this afternoon, and how that together either creates a bigger space for civil society, a bigger environment around influencing the way in which women or other marginalised people are brought into political decision making. So I think that's something the report suggests I absolutely agree with, and that funding around civic engagement and democratic governance in general, I've been working and watching in this space in Vanuatu since 2006 and it's quite amazing, actually, how there's so little funding. Like, it's pretty amazing for Vanuatu to have a very good rank on the Global State of Democracy report, because a lot of that is facilitated by the government's own resources. Whether it's judicial independence, yes, we get support with the Commonwealth, judges, programs and things like that. Those are absolutely welcomed and appreciated. But when you think about electoral management, there's nominal support from partners, and it's, of course, always welcomed. But it's still pretty small. It's like a ballot box, like Australia one year says, well, we'll pay for your several hundred ballot boxes to get out. That's it. But the rest of the stuff, the systemic stuff that's around how we're managing observation, accountabilities, transparency, fairness and all that at elections, it's completely funded by the government. Now that's how it should be, right? But so when we say there are gaps, and what can we do more on, well, our government, it's already funding quite a lot. We've got disasters to deal with every year. So there is a place for partners to come in and but to find that right way to come in where it's not seen as it's not straying into any form of political interference, but is enabling our civil society to do more of the civic engagement work that we still need.
Romitesh Kant 1:13:44
But also there is this unintended consequence, like funding WASH or climate change. It's de linking it from sort of linking it to democracy, transparency, accountability work as well. It's part of it. During the Bainimarama years, climate youth activists would not want to talk about human rights or rule of law or democracy, right? Because it's separate. Oh, that's your thing. You're an activist. Yes, we are climate activists. So we don't have to talk about human rights or we don't have to talk about democracy. But there's a inherent link between these issues, you know, and the more funding goes to these it's sort of puts it on a lower register for linking it to democracy or human rights or accountability and transparency.
Anna Naupa 1:14:29
And disaster response is a really good example. And I'm, you know, for example, when, when you get that response and assistance from both government as well as donor partners or NGO partners. People want to know where those resources went. Where did the food go? How did it get prioritised? Why do some communities have 17 kilos of rice per head, whereas other communities have zero? You know, these are actually political, democratic accountability questions, but they get parked, so I agree.
Amita Monterola 1:15:04
Thank you, Anna, Michael and Romitesh for joining us today.
Amita Monterola 1:15:12
International IDEA and ANU’s Department of Pacific Affairs conclude the report by proposing that further research is needed to understand Pacific democracy and its complexity.
International IDEA's Rikkila Tamang talks about why insights from the Pacific region are particularly timely.
Leena Rikkila Tamang 1:15:31
As a think and do tank, IDEA always asks, shat can be done next, by whom, to strengthen democracy and democracy research? And therefore the recommendations of the report are therefore particularly valuable to us, and also in this global moment of declining trust on democratic institutions and new threats to democratic order, we feel that the world is really hungry for democratic innovations, and the Pacific offers some remarkable examples. And perhaps it is because democratic institutions in the Pacific are relatively young or not cemented, and also because modern parliamentary and customary and religious norms coexist that there has been some room for innovation. So these are innovations the world can learn from and part of our role is to bring these examples to global audiences. We also learned that democracy in small states requires more nuanced understanding, and that applying the same standard used in large individualistic societies can perhaps overlook both the vulnerabilities and the opportunities that come with smallness and many small island states in Africa, South Asia, the Caribbean, may share similar dynamics. And we were pleased that Ralph Regenvanu, the Minister, Member of Parliament and anthropologist from Vanuatu, agreed to write the foreword and he writes how democracy in the Pacific begins in local communities, in the way people relate to each other, while also acknowledging and, as a political leader, challenges remain. And I think his message is really reinforcing the core argument of this report, that there is a clear support for democracy in the Pacific Island region, but also reasons for concern about its current practice.
Amita Monterola 1:17:44
Ralph Regenvanu recently led Vanuatu's negotiating team at the COP30 climate summit in Belem, Brazil. Rikkila Tamang notes that Pacific nations are already leading the way in thinking about how to adapt democracy when facing the challenge of climate change.
Leena Rikkila Tamang 1:18:10
This year's International IDEA's Global State of Democracy report, we are focusing on migration and it's entitled Democracy on the Move, recognising that the democratic rights should move with the people. Given the amount, the number of people crossing borders, who are moving, leaving their countries voluntarily or in search of a better life or given that they're needing to do so as refugees, asylum seekers or indeed as the climate crisis is making livelihoods more and more difficult in several places so there is more and more climate-induced migration, and it is only to increase in decades to come. And we need to start thinking through how the democracies are to adapt as well in terms of people's ability to participate and to be represented. And in the report, we particularly look at the issues of opportunities to vote, out-of-country voting practices, and then also the issues of representation. And Tuvalu's efforts to safeguard nationhood in the face of climate threats, it is, of course, still quite a unique case, but I don't think it will stay unique in decades to come. And I think they are really trying to think through what is left of Tuvalu? Even if the physical Island may disappear, how do they make sure that society continues? Many have heard of the plans of creating Tuvalu in the digital space. But there are still a lot of unanswered questions about indeed that that spot in the ocean, how to make sure that it stays as part of the sovereign Tuvalu nation? Where do the people end up going? How is that society and community remaining Tuvaluans, even if sharing their citizenship with other countries?
Amita Monterola 1:20:41
You've been listening to Leena Rikkila Tamang, the director for Asia and the Pacific for International IDEA. A link to the full report, Assessing the State of Democracy in the Pacific and International IDEA's Latest Global Report is in our show notes. We look forward to joining you in another fortnight on Devpolicy Talks.