GFA: Its international perspective

Much as the signatories to many international agreements may have the best of intentions, it is nevertheless fair to say that these accords sometimes contain inherent flaws. Let us first look at the international experience, starting with the most recent events, before then examining the relevant weaknesses of the St. Andrew’s Agreement in a little more detail.

DARFUR

British diplomats were present in Kenya in July 2002, when the Machakos Protocol was signed by the two sides of the Sudanese civil war: on the one hand, the Khartoum government, and on the other, the SPLA (Sudan People’s Liberation Army) with its political wing, the SPLM (SPL Movement). This Protocol allows for a referendum in South Sudan on a motion of independence in six years’ time.

Well, if one part of Sudan can opt out, why not another? Six months later, the SLA (Sudan Liberation Army) with the SLM (SL Movement) started its uprising in Darfur. Khartoum responded with the Janjaweed, and the victims are now measured in hundreds of thousands. So one peace agreement, in effect, was a catalyst for war elsewhere…

...which has necessitated another peace agreement. The latest, specifically for Darfur, was signed in Nigeria in May, again in the presence of British diplomats, and this accord also contains a referendum clause, on autonomy rather than independence. This latest agreement has just collapsed, however, and at least one rebel group is now calling for independence (The Guardian, 21.9.2006).

CYPRUS

After years of careful negotiation, the United Nations’ presented the people (in the two communities) of Cyprus with a proposal for a political settlement. On 24.42004, they voted on this package in a referendum, but while 65% of the Turkish Cypriots said ‘yes’, 76% of the Greek Cypriots said ‘no’. So the problem remains.

KOSOVA/O

The referendum clause of the 1999 Rambouillet Agreement on Kosovo suggested that the province should hold a referendum on independence (as if the outcome of such a vote could have been in any doubt; in 1991, Kosova had voted by 99% to opt out of Yugoslavia on an 87% turnout; i.e., the Albanians had voted, and the Serbs had boycotted; but the international community had refused to recognise this poll).

So, needless to say, Milošević refused to sign Rambouillet. Therefore NATO bombed. He still refused his signature. The bombing continued. Eventually, Russia re-negotiated the agreement by deleting the referendum clause. Whereupon Milošević did sign; so he lost the war but won the argument.

YUGOSLAVIA

In 1991, the European Union appointed the Badinter Commission to make recommendations on the increasing levels of dissent in the various constituent parts of what was still Yugoslavia. To overcome these problems, amazingly, it suggested any ‘people’ wishing to aspire to independence should first hold a referendum. Well, as in Sudan, if one part of Yugoslavia can opt out, why not another? A few years later, Sarajevo’s now legendary newspaper Oslobodjenje pointed out that “all the wars in the former Yugoslavia [had] started with a referendum�? (op. cit., 7.2.1999).

NORTHERN IRELAND

In 1973, the British parliament decided that there would be a referendum in NI, every ten years or so, “to take the border out of politics,�? (Hansard, 24.3.1972). We all know what happened: just as the Catholics boycotted the 1991 referendum in the Serb-held areas of Croatia, or the Muslims the 1991 ballot in Macedonia, or the Orthodox the 1992 poll in Bosnia, or as already mentioned the Serbs in Kosovo, so too the ‘mainly Catholic’ SDLP boycotted this border poll. On turnouts of 95%, 72%, 63% and 59%, these four referendums all led to Stalinist ‘victories’ by 99%, 95%, 99% and 97% respectively.

Despite the obvious inadequacies of such a methodology, the 1998 Belfast Agreement also allows for a referendum, every seven years or so, on whether or not the province should change its constitutional status. Somewhat hypocritically, the Agreement talks of “consent�?, but the means by which such consent will be measured shall be the majority vote, which can only measure the very opposite: the degree of dissent – so many ‘for’ and so many ‘against’.

The very existence of this part of the Agreement is one of the principal reasons why sectarianism in the province, despite the more peaceful atmosphere which now prevails, has not decreased.

THE ST. ANDREW’S AGREEMENT – THE BACKGROUND

Have any lessons been learnt in this regard? Alas no. Many politicians appear to be mesmerised by the two-option majority vote, if not in simple, then in weighted, qualified or consociational (cross-community) form. They know that simple majority voting cannot work in the NI Assembly, which is why they devised the system of ‘designations’ for consociational voting to be used instead. They did not suggest the same consociational methodology for the referendum, however, (not least because that would have required two separate electoral registers, as was the case in Cyprus), and we are stuck with the prospect of a referendum (or ‘never-end-um’), a “seven-year-itch�?, until a majority says ‘yes’ to a united Ireland. So as far as our constitutional status is concerned, it is ‘black or white’, it is ‘British or Irish’, and in the name of peace, there is to be no compromise! Meanwhile, in the Assembly, they rely on their designations, so perpetuating the sectarian nature of our society, the very thing that the peace process was meant to overcome. And this system of designations is a second principal failure of the Belfast Agreement.

Never, at any time in the Belfast Talks process, has any consideration been given to multi-option voting. Other countries use multi-option voting in referendums – New Zealand, for example, held a five-option ballot in 1992 – and a few use multi-option voting in their parliaments – Norway sometimes uses multi-option voting, though their last attempt was in 1972, while Sweden and Finland use another form of multi-option voting when debating lots of amendments. Multi-option voting is perfectly possible, of course, and not least because of the advent of computers. For reasons unstated, however, politicians prefer to rely on the unreliable, the most inaccurate measure of collective opinion ever invented: the 2,500-year-old two-option majority vote. Everything remains ‘black-or-white’, and every vote is ‘for-or-against’.

Even when they know the debate is multi-optional, as when the Irish Oireachtas was considering the complex question of abortion, or when the UK parliament was discussing reform of the House of Lords, politicians either turn the multi-option discussion into a two-option argument (as in Ireland, and lose the subsequent referendum by 49.6% to 50.4% - 07.03.2002), or they take a series of majority votes (as in Britain, and lose the argument, for in fact, all five votes were lost – Hansard, 22.1.2003).

ST. ANDREW’S – THE DETAIL

So now we consider the St. Andrew’s Agreement, to see if it has the potential that it claims.

Well, in para 3, “Both Governments remain fully committed to the fundamental principles of the Agreement: consent for constitutional change�?. So there is nothing new here: it is still consent by dissent. They are still wedded to, or should we say obsessed by, the two-option majority vote.
To emphasise the point, they talk in Annex A 2 of those occasions “where a decision of the Executive could not be achieved by consensus and a vote was required...�? We must assume, therefore, that they just do not accept that multi-option voting is possible, or that a preferential multi-option vote can be consensual. Instead, it seems, they think that a consensus can only be verbal, and that if the MLAs cannot come to a verbal agreement, that they must hold a divisive, two-option (consociational) majority vote. Everything, it seems, and every amendment, is still ‘black-or-white’.
They also want “stable inclusive partnership government...�? (para 3), to ensure “that d’Hondt can be run...�? (para 10). But d’Hondt is rather exclusive. It excludes all the small parties for a start. A truly inclusive methodology would suggest all the members of the Assembly should be entitled to participate and not just the four ‘big’ parties. Accordingly, they could vote by PR-STV such that the ten members elected could then be appointed to office in order of their election. At least this would allow members of smaller parties both to aspire to office and participate (i.e., vote) in the process. Ideally, of course, the Assembly would use a matrix vote so that all 108 members could choose, not only the ten ministers, but also the ministerial posts to which each of the ten would be appointed.
Finally, in Annex D, the signatories have agreed that in March 2007, the St. Andrews agreement will be endorsed by the NI electorate. This apparently means one of two things. Either there will be an election (which, involving as it probably will the election of quite a few fairly familiar faces from a field of contestants who, with the exception of a tiny few like McCartney, all support the Agreement, cannot endorse very much). Or the province will have yet another referendum (which, if history is anything to go by, will probably be another two-option ballot - the UK government has only ever catered for one multi-option ballot, in Newfoundland in 1948, but it did so only after street protests in Halifax had campaigned in favour of a third option) - and a referendum of the two-option variety is at best a blunt instrument. In 1998, for example, some of those who campaigned for a ‘yes’ vote were nevertheless bitterly opposed both to the referendum clause and to the section on designations. In a two-option setting, when the question relates to an entire document, it is very difficult to interpret any vote, either in favour or against.

CONCLUSION

In democratic theory, the people are sovereign. If the people say the Belfast Agreement should be implemented, as they did in 1998, the politicians should comply with that decision; and if any members of the executive find this or any other decision of the people unpalatable, they should resign and allow others to take on the responsibility of executing that will.
What happened, of course, was that a few politicians said they represented a majority of the majority, and thus pursued the illogicality of majoritarian politics to its inevitable impasse. Now, after four years in limbo and six years in outright opposition, the very people who earlier had refused to implement the will of the people have now agreed to do exactly that.
St. Andrews is meant to move us forward, and maybe it will. It would have helped, however, if the two governments had been a little more forward-thinking, rather than being stuck in a majority vote groove, for the latter has already shown itself to be inadequate in so many settings, both here and abroad.