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KIRIBATI DEMOCRACY


to take on the role of the decision- makers of the village.


The arrival of democracy When I-Kiribati people learned in


school of “democracy” as government by the people for the people, they understood perfectly well what it entailed. When Britain agreed to allow us to govern ourselves on the Westminster model by a democratically elected Parliament we cast our minds back to our Maneaba system of government. We agreed that they were very similar and readily accepted to have our constitution written along those lines which we had lived by for so long. Kiribati was granted independence from Britain on 12 July 1979 with a set of rules that we had to govern ourselves under all written in our independence constitution. Experience taught us after working with this written constitution that it was very different from the way we used to govern ourselves under the wise counsel of our old men. It did not take long to realize that we were no longer governed by wise


old men who got to the position of governing because they had lived long and had understood quite intimately what was best for their community. In their place we had these elected representatives who, because they had been educated in alien ideas and culture, seemed to know more of the rules of the game. They came with strange ideas and expected the community to follow their new ideas. Some might have seen and learned how Parliaments in the countries where they were educated debated issues along party lines and so they brought the idea of party politics with them and encouraged it to be the way debating should be conducted in our present- day Parliament.


Misinformation on party politics When the Constitutional Convention was held to formulate the basis of our constitution before independence,


The Parliamentarian | 2013: Issue One | 27


Opposite page: the national flag; Above: The Parliament of Kiribati; Left: The entrance to the Parliament building in Tarawa.


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