Fiji Elections: Two Men, Two Parties, Two Visions

PARLIAMENT UPDATE.  At  its first sitting, Dr Jiko Luweni was re-elected Speaker, Veena Bhatnagar Deputy, and  Sikiveni Rabuka Leader of the Opposition. He rejected the Standing Orders which decides parliamentary procedures, saying they removed the bipartisan approach, the right of the public to petition, and the right of the Opposition to chair the Public Accounts Committee.The orders were passed. FijiFirst has 27 seats and SODELPA-NFP 24. There are ten women MP's, the highest ever.

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In many Western democracies the major political parties that once represented a left and right wing have moved towards the centre. Not so in Fiji, on the country's most critical political issue, race, the centre is empty, although the emergence of two of the minor parties, Unity Fiji and HOPE, appear to have been steps in a centre direction. Unsurprisingly, despite their moderate policies and well known leaders, they failed to attract more than a handful of votes, and will probably not contest the next election.

Fiji is a deeply divided country whose leaders have two very different visions. Sixty years after Independence some colonial legacies remain and do not mix well with notions of "true" democracy.

Fiji Elections - Final Results, and some comments

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Some 227,241 people voted for FijiFirst which gave them 50.02% of the vote and 27 seats in parliament, just enough to form the Government.  181,072 people voted for SODELPA (39.85%). This will give them 21 seats.  And 33,155 (7.38%) voted for NFP resulting in 3 seats, two short of being able to form a Coalition Government.  I need a day or two to record what people have been saying and attempt an analysis of the results. Hopefully, the Fiji Election Office's app will the fully functional soon. Meanwhile, the social media is awash with  misleading conclusions and "what if's".

Fiji: Rabuka Aquitted, FICAC Appeal, and other Election-Related News

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The big news —now that the British Royal couple have left— is that Sitiveni Rabuka has been acquitted of charges brought against him by the Fiji Independent Commission Against Corruption of falsifying his asset returns. So he can continue as an election candidate. My guess is that this will strengthen SODELPA's position in the election.  

Rabuka's earlier remarks on restoring land rents to chiefs, Ro Teimumu's comments on replacing the present constitution, and this article deriding Indo-Fijians and applauding Rabuka for the 1997 Coup, leave little doubt, however,  about where SODELPA stands on the role of the chiefs, the resurrection of the Great Council of Chiefs, the virtual exclusion of ordinary Taukei from a fair share of land rents, and the place of Indo-Fijians in Fiji. 

Breaking news, however, is that FICAC has filed an appeal

Tuilaepa's Women; Bizarre Asylum Appeal; Xinhua in Fiji; Waste and Solar Energy Projects

N249.GOOD OL' TUILAEPA.  Samoa's PM  thinks he's got the right gender balance in his newly appointed cabinet. “We have two female members and 34 male members [in Parliament, and one woman in the 13-member cabinet]...That’s more than enough,” he said.

Meanwhile in the Fiji he so often criticises, the Minister of Women has confirmed that government departments will now be required to supply gender information in all personnel statistical data in order to better monitor progress towards gender equality.

N250. BIZARRE ASYLUM APPEAL. A Fiji Muslim applied for political asylum in the US in 1989 following the 1987 Rabuka coup. The case was deferred for 14 years when a court ordered his deportation on the grounds that conditions in Fiji had improved. That takes us to 2004.

He appealed, and last Friday, some eight years later, a federal judge said immigration officials hadn't considered evidence of the treatment of minorities since the 2006 coup. They had looked only at general conditions in Fiji, not the situation of someone who had been persecuted under a previous military regime. If they had conducted an up-to-date analysis, said the judge, there is a "reasonable likelihood" they would conclude that Ali would face persecution in Fiji. His case has been referred back to the immigration courts for further review.

Jannif Ali, the applicant, said the military forces that overthrew Fiji's government in 1987 had dealt harshly with Fijians of Indian descent.  He testified that a soldier had beaten him with a gun, military forces had vandalized and dynamited his home, and that ethnic Fijians had regularly thrown rocks at his family and car and threatened to rape his wife.

The court was told persecution of Indo-Fijians resumed after the 2000 coup but then receded but "the human rights situation deteriorated greatly" after the 2006 coup.

This should tell us something about how little American courts know about Fiji and how some emigrants use the appeal system to indefinitely extend their stay on false grounds. It is unlikely to be any different with most of those who have applied for political asylum in Australia.

N251. XINHUA, CHINA'S official press agency, now has  a press agency in Suva. The bureau will cover Fiji and nearby South Pacific island countries.  [The North is getting closer!]

N252.WASTE AND SOLAR ENERGY EFFICIENCIES. Two new energy developments will soon bring economic, environmental and social benefits.

The first, the waste-to-energy power plant under construction in Sigatoka will employ about 600 people in the construction phase and about 200 permanent positions in the factory and 4,000 indirectly when it is complete in three years time. "We are talking about rubbish pickers all around Fiji, in the outer islands and resorts. The whole of Fiji will feel the impact as we try and rid Fiji of this problem – rubbish,"  said i-Viti Disenergy Renewable Power Plant Company president Ratu Enesi Yavala.

The other is at Tavua where in three months time solar street lights will replace existing lighting. Fiji's first town, Levuka on the island of Ovalau, is likely to be next on the list. -- Based on No:0673/MOI.

Qarase's Pension Restored, Cybernet Terrorism, Women's Centres, Govt Borrowing, Govt & Media: PINA Says Keep Door Open

(+) ONE STEP BACK, THREE STEPS FORWARD. The PM's announcement that pension payments will resume for former parliamentary leaders and other outspoken critics is the sort of forward-looking conciliatory acts we need to see more of. Among those affected by the December Pensions Decree were former prime minister, Laisenia Qarase, and the leader of the 1987 coups, former Prime Minister Sitiiveni Rabuka.

The pension stopped was not the  FNPF pension to which all members contribute, but pension entitlements under the Parliamentary Retirement Allowances Decree 1989, the Prime Minister's Pensions Act 1994, the Judges Remuneration and Emoluments Act and the Pensions Act. This important distinction has never made clear by the international media who left the public thinking that Fiji's "John and Jane Citizen" had been reprived of pensions to which they had contributed for the whole of theire working lives.  So much, once again, for the impartiality of the media!

CYBER TERRORISM WRITES: "Croz, I think it's terrific that you've finally done what other blog owners routinely do and that is to approve every comment before it's posted. I used to admire you for upholding the principle of freedom of speech in giving people direct and unfettered access. But this freedom has been totally abused by a small minority and the recent cyber attacks make it impossible to continue with your previous practice. Sad that it's come to this but that's life on the internet - an information highway dotted with intellectual thugs and technical vandals."

Another reader, Cyber Bores,  said "Maybe we can have cyber floggings in which adolescent minded cyber vandals receive fatal doses of radiation from their screens." [To make the fullest use of this blogsite, read Comments by clicking on "comment" at the the end of each post. They add information, argument and sometimes humour.]

(+) WOMEN'S FEDERATION CENTRES. Ministry of Women, Social Welfare and Poverty Alleviation head, Dr Jiko Luveni,  says government will set up six centres, two in each Division, to help "pull women out of poverty and enable them to realize their potential in national and economic development." The centres will be run by the Fiji Womens' Federation to ensure all Government resources directed towards women empowerment are well coordinated without any duplication. The first centre at Tacirua outside Suva will open soon.

(o-) WARNINGS ON FSC AND GOVERNMENT BORROWING. The Fiji Sugar Corporation  has borrowed $86.9m locally in the last nine months, over half from the Fiji National Provident Fund at 9-10%, $22.5m from the Reserve Bank at 7-8%, and $19m from the Bank of Baroda at 8-9%, $1.4m from the Bank of South Pacific at 8.3%.Offshore borrowings was $4.2m million from the EXIM Bank of India. Total borrowings stood at $91.1 million. FSC lost $8.3m in the three months ending in February.

The Asia Development Bank and the IMF are looking for ways to assist but futher loans will depend on the success of Government's structural reforms to improve the economy. Fiji's current total debt is about 53% of GDP, which is above theshold of sustainability that international agencies prefer to loan against. The ADB has adopted a"wait and see" approach while talks continue.

GOVERNMENT AND THE MEDIA. Newly appointed Acting Secretary for Information Sharon Smith-Johns says her job is to improve communication between the interim regime and the media. She says she wants to open up the channels of communication, by making ministers and civil servants more available to the media.

“It has been difficult. The government is always willing to talk to the media. There has been some irresponsible reporting in the past, and we all know that, we recognise that, both sides. But I think moving forward, we can’t spend too much time looking at the past, what is past is past, it is moving forward, it is forming relationships, it is understanding from both sides.” She says government does not want to gag the media, and the media decree, when it is implemented, will ensure balanced reporting.

(+) MEDIA DECREE AND PINA. Pacific Islands New Association President Moses Stevens  says he has received assurances that changes were being made to the decree in areas such as the proposed penalties for for journalists deemed to have breeched the legislation.

He said it was important dialogue with the government was kept open: “If we had a closed door between us and the government, then we would be left out of the process and I think that door should be open, the government must understand where we are coming from and we will understand them and maybe we will work together at getting the people ready for 2014.” PINA says it would like to help train members of the interim government in Fiji on understanding the role of the media.

(B) Twenty-Three Years On From 10:00 A.M., May 14, 1987

Three items: 

Subhash Appana (immediately below); Citizens' Consitutional Forum Anniversary Release (abridged), and my comments on the CCF release.

Coup Anniversary and Forgiveness
By Subhash Appana

Today marks the 23rd anniversary of Rabuka’s coup, a coup that brought into the tranquil backwaters of the South Pacific the use of might over right as a weapon to change government. Sure, this had been the mode of choice in the good old days, but colonization and refinement by the British was supposed to have changed this more than a century ago. And like all old habits, it was supposed to have receded into the mists of time.