In March 1953 Keith Woodward arrived in the New Hebrides (Vanuatu after
independence in 1980) where he was to spend his entire colonial career in
the British Administration and where he played a pivotal role in the
constitutional development of the unique Anglo-French Condominium,
particularly in the years leading up to independence.
Because of his poor eyesight Woodward's initial rank in the Administration
was that of Office Assistant. However his superiors were not slow to
recognize his talents and in 1957 he was promoted into the Administrative
grade. Woodward was subsequently to serve in virtually all areas of
government, including education, health and agriculture, and in the process,
helped by a highly retentive memory, he acquired an encyclopaedic
knowledge of the New Hebrides. In 1968 he was appointed Secretary for
Political Affairs and he was to remain in this post until his retirement ten
years later.
Located in the South Pacific and comprising roughly 80 islands with an
overall population in 1967 of about 70,000 the New Hebrides was jointly
administered by Great Britain and France under arrangements set out in a
1914 protocol. This Anglo-French Condominium was an unwieldy and
cumbersome system of government and for that and other reasons this group of islands remained a largely forgotten and neglected dependent
territory until well after World War II.
In 1958 an Advisory Council was established. In the world of decolonization
this was then generally deemed to be the first in a series of gradual steps
along the road to independence. However, as in many other ways, the
Condominium did not follow the precedents set elsewhere. Over the years
from 1958 the Advisory Council was gradually made more representative, but
by the late 1960s constitutional advance had effectively stalled. The
Metropolitan Governments, and particularly the French Government, were
unwilling to take the next necessary steps towards preparing the country for
internal self-government and ultimately independence. All this was soon to
change, a change propelled forward in great measure by the founding in
1971 of the New Hebrides Cultural Association by an Anglican priest. Father
Walter Uni, and some other prominent anglophone Melanesians. In 1973
this Association was transformed into the National Party (NP) and by then
widespread calls for independence were being made. The following year, in
response to these developments, the francophone community came together
and formed two further political parties, the Union des Communautes des
Nouvelles Hebrides and the Mouvement Autonomiste des Nouvelles
Hebrides, the latter being largely based in Santo in the north of the
archipelago. In the poisoned political atmosphere which permeated the final
years of the Condominium the scene was then set for what was to become at
times a bitter and byzantine struggle between the two political groupings, a
struggle which also saw them turn on the Colonial powers and frequently saw
the two Administrations pitted one against the other. All this was the
backdrop to Woodward's most significant contribution to the New Hebrides.
In November 1974 an Anglo-French ministerial meeting was held in London
to discuss the New Hebrides. In preparation for that meeting Woodward was
effectively the think tank on the British side and it was he, in consultation with
his colleagues in the French Residency, who drafted the proposals which
were considered and agreed by Ministers. Chief amongst them was a
decision to establish a representative assembly with wide-sweeping powers,
to be elected largely by universal suffrage. Political circumstances dictated
that this decision should be implemented as soon as possible and Woodward
toiled tirelessly to that end.
The difficulties he faced were enormous. Universal suffrage elections had
never been held before in the New Hebrides and the whole electoral framework had to be built from scratch. The islands of the archipelago are far
flung and notoriously difficult of access, resources were scarce, the transport
infrastructure was rudimentary, the communication system was primitive and
limited in its coverage and a significant proportion of the population was
illiterate. It fell largely to Woodward not only to devise the electoral system
but to oversee from the capital. Port Vila, the whole election operation itself.
In his A Political Memoir of the Anglo-French Condominium of the New Hebrides he generously pays tribute to others who played a
role, principally Paul Treadwell QC, who as Attorney-General drafted the
requisite legislation, and Gordon Norris a fellow Administrative Officer who
amongst other things applied his remarkable organizational skills in drawing
up detailed guidelines for polling officers on Election Day. Jacques Fabre, the
Chancelier in the French Residency had a major input. There were also
many others like the French and British District Agents (as District
Commissioners were called in the Condominium) who organized the
electoral registration on the ground, and ensured that all went smoothly
within their respective bailiwicks on Election Day. And of course there were
the hundreds of men and women who travelled to the furthermost points of
the archipelago to register the population, and subsequently deliver ballot
papers and preside over polling stations. Flowever it was Woodward who
carried the principal burden for the overall exercise and the electoral system
finally adopted was his brain child.
In drawing up that system there were two considerations uppermost in his
mind - fairness and simplicity. The system had to ensure that the number of
seats obtained by any one political party corresponded reasonably closely to
its percentage of the votes cast and, whilst safe-guarding against fraud, it
also had to be simple enough so that first time often illiterate voters did not
unwittingly spoil their ballots. The principle of fairness was mainly addressed
by dividing large areas into multi-seat constituencies. Thus on the island of
Malekula, for example, a three-seat constituency with a substantial NP
majority, the widely separated francophone communities would stand a
reasonable chance of gaining a seat which would probably be denied to them
in any first-past-the-post, single seat constituency arrangement. He did toy
with the idea of a fully proportional representation system such as is
operated in the Republic of Ireland. However he rejected this suggestion
because of its complexity and opted for a simpler approach with the elector
only voting for one candidate, as distinct from a list of candidates in order of
preference.
In all of this, sight was not lost of the need for the system to be simple. As
developed, the intention was that on entering the polling station, the elector,
his name having been checked against the list of registered voters, would be
handed a bunch of ballot papers each inscribed with the name of a
candidate, and bearing the symbols and colours of the individual political
parties. All the elector would then have to do was go into the polling booth
and place in a box the ballot paper bearing the name of his candidate of
choice. This all seems perfectly simple. However, in multi-seat
constituencies, there was an additional problem. How would the illiterate
voter be able to distinguish one of his party's candidates from the other?
This was important not only for the elector's sake but also because e.g. the
NP supporter on Malekula was likely to be voting under instruction from his
party as to which of two or three candidates to select, if bunching of votes on
any single candidate was to be avoided, to the detriment of the overall
number of seats gained in that constituency by the NP. This dilemma was
finally resolved by inserting photographs of candidates on the ballot papers,
a suggestion which Woodward explains in his memoir actually came from
Kalkot Matas Kelekele, an NP leader who was later President of Vanuatu
(2004-9). He also amusingly confesses not to have told his French
counterpart where the idea had come from out of fear that linked to the NP,
as it was, it would be rejected out of hand.
Throughout 1975 Woodward ploughed a lonely furrow. He had no experience
in organizing elections and neither was there any expertise available to him
from either within his own Administration in the New Hebrides or from
London. He had to bring the French Residency with him and above all keep
the fractious political parties on side. It was a herculean endeavour, not
made easier by his failing sight - by 1975 he could only read with difficulty.
Notwithstanding all these obstacles, his input yielded results. The elections
for the Representative Assembly were conducted in November 1975 and
were judged to be a resounding success. They were held peacefully, there
was a huge turnout - at least eighty-three percent - few spoilt ballots and the
total number of seats won by individual parties generally reflected their share
of the national vote. Woodward regarded the electoral system itself as the
single greatest achievement of his career. It is also noteworthy that in the
next general election in 1979, by which time Woodward had left the Pacific,
the same electoral system with only minor modifications was used again, and
indeed it is a system that has been retained in the independent Vanuatu.
Turbulence marked the remaining time left to Woodward in the New Hebrides
as the Condominium lurched from one political crisis to another. Events
culminated perhaps on 29th November 1977 when in Port Vila the British
police used tear gas to disperse a francophone crowd seeking to confront a group of anglophone NP supporters, and relations between the two
Administrations plummeted to their nadir. In referring to this period in his
memoir, Woodward makes reference to his inability to influence the course of
events and the sense of frustration he felt at the endless political
manoeuvring that ultimately prevented the 1975 Representative Assembly
from being brought into existence. He also had another cross to bear. A
froideur had descended on his previously warm relationship with the French
community in Port Vila. By and large they detested the anglophone NP and
somehow they believed that Woodward was secretly behind their political
success. Nothing could have been further from the truth, but the belief
gathered momentum, gained traction within the French Administration and
ultimately poisoned his working relationship with his French counterparts. For
a profound Francophile, this development was painful.
Woodward also left his mark beyond the confines of the British
Administration. He was involved in the introduction of scouting to the New
Hebrides and served as both Secretary and Chairman of the Scout Council.
He played a major part in the establishment of the Vanuatu Cultural Centre
and was the Honorary Secretary of its board for sixteen years until his
retirement in 1978. In time, he became the effective "Cultural Tsar" of the
British Administration. He was always ready to help and support researchers
carrying out fieldwork in the islands and he was a key contact for generations
of young academics pursuing their studies in Melanesia. This was a labour of
love linked to his profound and enduring attachment to the New Hebrides
and its people.
In writing about Woodward at the time of his death in November last year, Ati
George Sokomanu, the first President of Vanuatu, had this to say, "He was one
of the founding fathers of this country and will long be remembered here both
as a loyal servant of the Crown and of Vanuatu."
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