The Commonwealth: A Force for Democracy

It is a great privilege and pleasure to be here.

I must thank Terry Barringer for inviting me and am very sorry I let her down last year, when the call of duty scuppered the opportunity to be here.

I’m honoured to have the Mayor of Cambridge in this audience. I’m also delighted to see Dame Veronica Sutherland. The fact that, as a former boss of mine as DSG she can learn nothing new from me but is still here to listen is very flattering, but also daunting!

It is gratifying to see that the Cambridge University Commonwealth Society remains active. The Commonwealth needs young people to believe in it.

Many prominent leaders of the Commonwealth have passed through the hallowed portals of this University. They not only include 15 British PMs, but over 20 Heads of State and Government of other countries, including three Indian PMs, two Singaporean PMs, two Sri Lankan leaders, one Australian PM and one Malaysian PM. This is also where the Cambridge-Malaysia Policy Studies Centre is located. Clearly, Cambridge has done its bit to nurture the Commonwealth.

One remembers the first Indian PM, Jawaharlal Nehru, in particular, because it was he who, history will judge, was instrumental in the birth of the modern Commonwealth. It was he who wanted India to remain in the Commonwealth when it decided to become a republic. I am sure his Cambridge connection had something to do with it!

It was India’s request, and the prescience and bold thinking of the rest of the eight-member Commonwealth at the time, which led to the 1949 London Declaration.

We celebrated the 60^th anniversary of that Declaration last year. We like to think of ourselves not as of pensionable age, but as 60 years young. Indeed, the theme last year was ‘The Commonwealth@60: Serving a New Generation’.

My appearance here comes not just on the heels of the 60^th anniversary of the modern Commonwealth, but on the eve of Commonwealth Day, which will be celebrated next Monday, 8 March.

It will be a very special Commonwealth Day this year. It will start with a flag-raising ceremony. The flag of Rwanda – the Commonwealth’s 54^th and newest member – will be unfurled in the presence of its President, Paul Kagame, and that of our current Chair-in-Office, Prime Minister Patrick Manning of Trinidad & Tobago.

What better testimony to the relevance and credibility of an international organisation than the fact that it is still growing?

Obituaries of the Commonwealth used to be a dime a dozen twenty years ago! It is a long time since I saw one though.

Why is that the case? Why do people no longer make disparaging remarks about the Commonwealth, calling it a post-colonial club that holds periodic jamborees. The acronym CHOGM used to be spelt out as ‘Cheap Holidays on Government Money’!

The answer to that question brings me to my theme this evening – the Commonwealth as a force for democracy.

If there is one reason why the Commonwealth has had a renaissance in the last two decades, it is because democracy has begun to be taken seriously as a core value of the Commonwealth.

Democracy is not new to the Commonwealth’s value system. In the very first Declaration of Commonwealth Principles, adopted by Commonwealth leaders at Singapore in 1971, the commitment was unambiguous:

.We believe in the liberty of the individual, in equal rights for all its citizens regardless of race, colour, creed or political belief, and in their inalienable right to participate by means of free and democratic political processes in framing the society in which they live. We therefore strive to promote in each of our countries those representative institutions and guarantees for personal freedoms under the law that are our common heritage.

Noble words indeed. Sadly, there was a lot of rhetoric in them; with a copious dose of lip service. In actual fact, the Commonwealth continued to be home to a sizeable number of autocratic regimes for many years to come.

The end of the Cold War changed all that. The shelter provided to despots and dictators by super power rivalry crumbled. Strong winds of freedom and representative democracy swept across the world.

The end of the Cold War also hastened the end of apartheid in South Africa, which has been a cause celèbre for the Commonwealth in particular.

So at a time when foreign offices across the world and every international organisation sought to recalibrate their sights and redefine priorities, the Commonwealth once again nailed its colours to the mast of democracy and good governance, this time with a greater sense of purpose.

The High Level Appraisal of the role of the Commonwealth conducted in 1990-91 culminated in the 1991 Harare Declaration, which set out the fundamental political values of the Commonwealth as:

· Democracy, democratic processes and institutions which reflect national circumstances, the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary, just and honest government;

· Fundamental human rights, including equal rights and opportunities for all citizens regardless of race, colour, creed or political belief;

This time things worked differently. Within days of the Harare summit, having already agreed to multi-party elections in Zambia for the first time, President Kenneth Kaunda lost at the polls and walked gracefully away from State House.

The statistics are telling: since 1991, a dozen Commonwealth countries have moved from one-party or military rule, to multi-party democracy. A few have moved in both forward and reverse gears, but the fact of the matter is that democracy is now much more of a defining feature of the Commonwealth, no longer a matter of rhetoric.

Indeed, the Commonwealth has become an acknowledged brand name in the field of democracy.

The leap from rhetoric to reality had much to do with three further developments. In 1995, on the first day of their summit meeting in Auckland, Commonwealth Heads of Government summarily suspended Nigeria, when the military regime of General Abacha hanged Ken Saro-Wiwa and his fellow Ogoni activists after a kangaroo trial, serving notice that the Commonwealth meant business.

Among those who played a lead role in this unprecedented punitive action against the Commonwealth’s largest African member, home to the then Secretary-General of the Commonwealth as it happens, was an African leader, Nelson Mandela.

The very next day saw the second development - leaders adopted the Millbrook Action Programme, which gave teeth to the Harare Declaration by providing a sanctions regime in the event of “serious or persistent violations” of the Harare principles.

The third development was the creation at Millbrook of the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG), a group of nine foreign ministers which has been given the role of custodian of the Harare principles.

I refer to CMAG as a major step in its own right because it has evolved into a respected, even feared embodiment of Commonwealth determination to have its values taken seriously.

CMAG has shown that it means business. Several countries have been suspended from the councils of the Commonwealth by this ministerial watchdog body. Pakistan was suspended twice before its reinstatement in 2004. Sierra Leone was suspended in 1997 and restored in 1999. Fiji was suspended twice from the councils of the Commonwealth and was eventually suspended fully from Commonwealth membership in September 2009. That remains the current situation.

Nigeria, as I mentioned was a case of a country being suspended directly by Heads of Government. In 2002, a Troika of Heads also suspended Zimbabwe from the councils of the Commonwealth. When this suspension was renewed at the Abuja CHOGM in December 2003, Zimbabwe walked out of the Commonwealth.

CMAG has been a revolutionary creation for the Commonwealth and has become a major deterrent to countries violating the Harare principles. No country likes to be placed on CMAG’s agenda – being ‘CMAGed’ has entered the lexicon of the Commonwealth as a humiliation – a stigma no country wants.

No other globally representative organisation has the equivalent of a CMAG. That your peers can sit in judgement on your actions and apply sanctions against you is an extremely bold step to take on the part of peers, knowing full well that the spotlight could turn on them tomorrow. It is also, politically speaking, a highly embarrassing position for any country to be in.

I should stress here that CMAG is not just a punitive body. It is always constructive and seeks ways to engage a country, with a view to facilitating its earliest possible reinstatement.

But CMAG has not been without criticism. It is fair to say that because of CMAG it is no longer possible for any military or civilian overthrow of an elected government in the Commonwealth to take place without suspension from the councils being virtually automatic.

But where such an overt derogation from constitutionality does not take place, but serious and persistent violations of Commonwealth values and principles are nonetheless perceived to have occurred, CMAG has felt constrained to act.

In such cases, much has hinged on the Secretary-General’s Good Offices role, to seek to engage with the country in question, either personally and directly, or through Secretariat staff, or at times through eminent Special Envoys.

There is also a potential Good Offices role assigned to the Chair-in-Office, the leader that hosted the last CHOGM (currently the PM of T&T).

In such cases, it is only when all Good Offices have failed that CMAG can be alerted and invoked. This route has not been tested so far.

So at their most recent summit in T&T, Commonwealth leaders endorsed a move by CMAG itself to do some introspection and determine, in consultation with the wider membership, how this key ministerial mechanism could be made more effective, so that it can work, for example, to pre-empt coups, not come into operation only after they have occurred.

But CMAG is only part of why the Commonwealth is a force for democracy. Building democracy is a complex and multi-faceted task, which the Commonwealth does in other ways as well.

One such way is the observation of elections. Since 1990, the Commonwealth has deployed 87 election observation missions of one kind or another, to 29 member countries. These missions are mounted in response to invitations – and we do not always say ‘yes’. Commonwealth observers are eminent and experienced persons and represent various disciplines. Collectively they make independent judgements on the credibility of elections and call it like it is – they are not there to apply a rubber stamp.

We are trying more and more to adopt a strategic and holistic approach to election observation. We make a pre-election assessment. Our observers arrive well before election day and make a comprehensive study of the electoral scene during the electoral process. And we are beginning to follow up more systematically after the election on the recommendations made by our team.

One of the major mandates that emerged from the last CHOGM was a decision to establish a network of National Election Management Bodies in the Commonwealth. This will offer a vehicle for sharing of experience and good practice, creating benchmarks and offering peer support, all of which are designed to raise the bar and make it difficult for electoral train-wrecks to happen.

But elections alone do not make democracy. We also invest a lot of effort in building or strengthening democratic institutions – election commissions, parliaments, human rights institutions, ombudsmen and the public service itself. With regard to parliaments, we work closely with the CPA; and with the CLGF on local government.

Through workshops on the roles of government and opposition, we seek to enhance understanding and effective implementation of their respective roles in a parliamentary democracy.

Through our Latimer House Principles, we aim to strengthen understanding of the roles of – and the balance between – the three branches of government.

We work hard to build the capacity of the media in member countries, together with professional partner organisations, so that the media can play its due role in democratic societies.

And support to civil society, primarily through the Commonwealth Foundation, is another plank of our effort to promote democratic culture.

It would be telling half the story if I left you with the impression that all our work is focused on building Democracy. Development – the other ‘D’ – is just as important. They are two sides of the same coin and mutually reinforcing.

If the Commonwealth is to be a force for democracy in the 21st century, it must also be a force for development. It must help deliver on people’s expectations – employment, nutrition, drinking water, health care, education. Faith in democracy, especially in developing countries, can be easily eroded without the fruits of development.

If I have painted a rather utopian picture of the Commonwealth this evening, I must set the record straight. We are by no means a perfect organisation and by no means can we yet claim to have achieved our objectives as an organisation wedded to democratic values. Firstly, democracy in any country is a journey, not a destination. Secondly, there are countries still in the Commonwealth where democracy is limited and where much work remains to be done.

But warts and all, we are more than ever before a community of democracies and the momentum is now inexorable.

That is what makes my job so much more exciting and challenging.

Thank you for your patience.