Leadership Quote by Laisenia Qarase

The phrase reads like a civics textbook, but in the mouth of a politician it’s doing sharper work: it’s a claim to legitimacy disguised as a truism. “Well balanced” signals moderation, the pose every leader reaches for when the room is divided. It reassures nervous audiences that no one is going to be punished, even if power is shifting. “Inclusive” carries the moral glow of fairness, yet it’s strategically vague; inclusion can mean genuine power-sharing or simply being consulted while decisions stay centralized.

Then come the real levers: “according to certain standards and ideals.” Those “certain” values are never named, which is the point. The line quietly asks: whose standards? whose ideals? In contested, multi-ethnic democracies, appealing to standards often functions as a gatekeeping mechanism. It frames political outcomes as technical compliance with “proper” norms rather than the messy result of bargaining, protest, and competing historical claims. You don’t have to win the argument if you can declare that your side represents governance itself.

Qarase’s context matters: Fiji’s post-coup politics, constitutional fights, and tensions over ethnic representation made “inclusion” both a promise and a pressure point. The quote tries to occupy the moral high ground where disagreement can be recast as irresponsibility. By ending on “proper governance,” it subtly sets a hierarchy: your preferred model isn’t one option among many; it’s the baseline. The sentence works because it sounds bland enough to be unassailable, while leaving maximum room to define “balance” and “inclusion” in ways that protect the speaker’s coalition.