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| Voqere Bainimarama and Graham Davis |
My friend Graham Davis writes:
" I am formally withdrawing my support for Frank Bainimarama and the FijiFirst government. And ending a 15-year relationship with the Prime Minister in which I am widely acknowledged to have played a significant role in assisting him, including in the role of principal communications advisor, speechwriter and advocate, not only in these columns but in the Fijian and international media ...
"Why this article is so hard and sad for me to write isn’t just the spectacle of the once admired Frank Bainimarama as the AG’s puppet and, increasingly, a figure of derision. It is what has gone before in my own relationship with the PM. Because the record shows that I have publicly sided with Bainimarama since his coup of 2006,
continually played advocate for him, went to work as an advisor to his government in 2012 and played a role in all the major events leading to the restoration of parliamentary rule in 2014 – including the tortured passage of the 2013 Constitution. Indeed, I was instrumental in persuading the PM to proceed with the 2014 election when he told me he “was thinking of having a referendum about whether to have an election”, instead of holding the election itself. And I stayed with him well into his second term, writing hundreds of speeches and articles for him, shepherding him through multiple challenges – including in his relationship with the AG – and crafting Fiji’s overall messaging in multiple global forums, including its presidency of the COP23 climate negotiations. I even wrote the State Prayer that opens every parliamentary session on the instruction of the AG one night to “give me a prayer in 15 minutes”. So invoking the blessing of the secular Almighty was also among my duties. I certainly have ample material for a book on the Bainimarama era, though, as we know, it is so far a story without an ending .... "
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