A Fiji community human rights coalition has called on Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka to halt his “reckless expansion” of government and refocus on addressing Fiji’s pressing challenges.

The NGO Coalition on Human Rights (NGOCHR) said it was outraged by the abrupt and arbitrary reshuffling of government ministerial portfolios and the appointment of ministers and assistant ministers.

“This move raises serious questions about transparency, accountability, and the stability of governance in Fiji,” the NGOCHR said in a statement.

The NGOCHR believes that the creation of new ministerial and assistant ministerial roles potentially imposes a heavy financial burden on an already strained public purse.

The coalition said it was also concerned with the fact that the Prime Minister had not been transparent with the public to clarify where the funding for these additional posts was being sourced.

“With the country’s national debt already exceeding $10 billion, this reshuffle is not just ill timed — it is financially irresponsible,” the statement said.

“Increasing operational costs in the face of economic fragility is a slap in the face to the hardworking people of Fiji and as such, a betrayal of public trust, with potential long-term consequences for our nation’s future.

“We demand accountability to the Fijian people and transparency.

“Is this a desperate attempt to consolidate power in preparation for the 2026 elections?

“This government cannot continue to use public resources to fund unnecessary political manoeuvres disguised as governance, while critical sectors and Fijians are left struggling.”

The NGOCHR called on Prime Minister Rabuka to halt “this reckless expansion of government and refocus on addressing Fiji’s pressing challenges.”

“Enough is enough! The Fijian people deserve leadership that serves their interests — not one that prioritises self-interest and political survival.

RNZ Pacific reports that Rabuka has lured six out of nine opposition members — who form the Group of 9 or G9 — to join his People’s Association (PA) ranks, a “rebranding” alliance that could potentially make his two coalition partners dispensable SODELPA and the National Federation Party (NFP).

Republished from The Fiji Times with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Fiji’s Women’s Minister Lynda Tabuya says the decision by the People’s Alliance executive council to remove her as deputy leader of the governing party is “unfair as it is based solely on allegations . . . generated by opponents from outside the party”.

Tabuya, who has been at the centre of an alleged sex and drug scandal with the sacked Education Minister Aseri Radrodro, was removed from the position on Monday.

According to the People’s Alliance, the scandal and associated allegations involving Tabuya had caused “potentially irreparable damage” to the party.

However, in a statement to RNZ Pacific today, Tabuya said she was “disappointed with the two lawyers in the legal and disciplinary subcommittee who have based their recommendations on allegations published on social media which is aimed to weaken the Coalition and weaken the party”.

“It is a dangerous precedent to set that by applying the constitution of the party they have based their decision to remove me as deputy party leader on allegations which they perceive as potentially causing damage,” she said.

“This comes as no surprise as these very same people opposed my appointment to be deputy party leader before the elections in 2022, so they have pounced on this opportunity to do so.

“It’s most unfortunate that as a woman I continue to be targeted with my removal last year as leader of government business and now as deputy party leader.”

She said the party must stand for fairness and justice and applying the law equally based on evidence and facts, not allegations

RNZ Pacific has contacted the People’s Alliance general secretary for comment.

Reaction expected
The publisher of Grubsheet, Graham Davis, who first reported — along with Fijileaks — about the scandal involving Tabuya and Radrodro, said Tabuya was attempting to “muddy the waters” with her reaction.

“It is telling that Lynda Tabuya doesn’t directly address the allegations against her that the PAP executive council has found to be proven on the recommendation of its disciplinary committee — including at least two lawyers — after a detailed examination of the evidence first reported by Fijileaks and Grubsheet,” he told RNZ Pacific.

“To turn her fire on the PAP in a vain attempt to muddy the waters is to be expected.”

Meanwhile, Tabuya remains a cabinet minister despite being removed as PAP deputy party leader.

According to the Fiji Sun newspaper, only Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka can remove her from cabinet, as per the 2013 Constitution.

“The Fiji Sun has been reliably informed that the PM is seeking legal opinion before making his call,” the newspaper reported.

Rabuka is currently on official travel in Australia.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

It has been six months now, but I have to make a strange admission. I miss the laughs I used to get over the pseudo-authoritative pronouncements of Fiji’s former attorney-general Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum (pictured).

I recall that he got a bit over-excited in January this year. That was when he decided to lecture the new government on “constitutionalism” and “rule of law”.

This was apparently without any reflection on how he and his FijiFirst party government had performed by the rule of law standards on which he was pontificating.

But in the last few days he decided to debate Deputy Prime Minister Manoa Kamikamica on the FijiFirst party’s 2022 financial accounts, apparently insisting that FFP was not insolvent.

This was never going to be an equal contest. Kamikamica is a chartered accountant. Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, well — he isn’t.

You don’t need to be an accountant to read a balance sheet — or to understand the simple definition of insolvency.

It’s not hard. You are insolvent if you “cannot pay your debts as they fall due”. You can find the accounts of all the main political parties on the Fiji Elections Office website.

More cash than others
FFP’s balance sheet (see image) says it has cash and term deposits of more than $270,000 in the bank.

That’s pretty good. It’s actually more cash than all the other political parties combined. But FFP also has debts (called, in accountant-speak, “payables and accruals”).

These come to well over $1.6 million. Once you add and subtract all the smaller stuff, FFP is left with net liabilities of just over $1 million.

In other words, that’s $1 million that FFP, even if it sold everything it owns, still could not pay to its creditors.

That $1.6 million in debts “fell due” months ago. And FFP could not pay them as they fell due. So FFP is insolvent.

Why pretend otherwise? Luckily for FFP, there isn’t a simple legal way for a creditor to wind up a political party for not paying its debts. Presumably FFP’s unpaid suppliers have learned that bitter lesson a bit late.

Learning lessons
But we are all learning lessons about FFP. Six months ago it was all-powerful. Its leaders sat in taxpayer-funded government offices and did (pretty much) whatever they wanted.

They regularly lectured the rest of us on all of our failings and all the things we were doing wrong. They exuded competence. Fast forward to June 2023.

The same FFP — which previously ran a government that spends $4 billion a year — had been suspended because it couldn’t prepare its own accounts on time.

The deadline for submitting political party accounts is March 31 each year. That’s in the Political Parties Act. Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum presumably knew that because, after all, he “wrote the law”.

FFP’s accounts were not submitted by March 31. The Acting Supervisor of Elections (in stark contrast to her predecessor) did not fire off a suspension letter one day later.

She gave FFP (and some other political parties) an extension of time to put in their accounts. Six weeks later, FFP still had not filed its accounts.

And at that point even the most reasonable supervisor is entitled to be annoyed. That was when the suspension letter went out. Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum’s reaction at the time was the usual legalistic bluster unsupported by the facts. FijiFirst, he said, had not been afforded “due process and natural justice”.

Failed to meet deadline
He did not elaborate. And what could he say? His party had been given a six-week extension of time and still not met the deadline under the law he had himself drafted. And then we found out.

FFP was deeply in debt — and presumably too embarrassed to tell the rest of us. If it hadn’t been suspended, we would probably still not know.

What else can we learn from the accounts of the former ruling party? We can see from its balance sheet that it began 2022 with (cash and term deposits) more than $860,000 in the bank.

That’s the sort of money other politicians could only dream of. At that time the People’s Alliance and National Federation Party, between them, had less than $20,000.

However FijiFirst then went on to spend $4.2 million — or more accurately, it ran up debts of that amount, and now it has to find $1.6m to pay off those debts.

That is because FFP raised only $2.2 million in donations. I say “only” — but that $2.2 million was twice as much as the three parties now in government could collect.

More lessons
There are other, bigger, lessons to learn from all of this — lessons about money and politics. What was FFP thinking as it threw around the cash in the 2022 election campaign?

Who would spend $1.6 million they didn’t have? The answer — a party that thought that, as long as it could win, the cash would keep rolling in.

No political party in Fiji’s history has ever had millions of dollars to spend.

And no political party in Fiji has ever cashed in on its political power as cynically as FFP did in the past 10 years. It was FFP that made the laws on electoral funding for political parties.

Companies were not allowed to contribute — only individuals and only up to $10,000 each. All donors had to be publicly disclosed — this included someone who put $2 in a bucket during a soli.

SODELPA leader Viliame Gavoka famously commented on how the laws required his party to issue a receipt for selling a $1 roti parcel. FFP of course, did not have to bother with the small stuff.

Soli? Roti parcels? Why bother when you can just wait for the $10,000 cheques? And the cheques rolled in — with embarrassing enthusiasm.

Early donor lists
Many of us saw the early FFP donor lists when they were published. Prominent business families fell over themselves to write their $10,000 cheques.

Of course, these cheques were from “individuals”. Those individuals were company directors, their spouses and even their under-age children, even if those children (and probably some of the spouses) didn’t have bank accounts to write cheques from.

You would hear from other, less enthusiastic, business people about invitations to FFP fund-raisers. You went — and you took your chequebook with you — because if you didn’t, well…

One business man complained to me: “If I pay, I get to talk to them — but they don’t do anything about my business problems anyway.”

Fiji is not the first country to encounter unhealthy problems about money and politics.

These create challenges in every democracy. In Fiji’s so-called “true democracy”, the rules about who donated money were supposed to be transparent.

The Political Parties Act originally required the Supervisor of Elections to publish the names of people who donated to political parties. But as FFP’s donors squirmed with discomfort under the spotlight of social media, in 2021 FFP quietly changed the law — buried, of course, in one of those Bills that would be rushed to Parliament on two days’ notice and rushed through the infamous Standing Order 51.

The law change meant that those party donor lists still had to be disclosed to the Supervisor of Elections — but the Supervisor no longer had to publish them in the newspapers.

Climate of political fear
Of course, in the climate of political fear that FFP actively promoted, that created a separate problem.

The ruling party always collects the millions. But the opposition parties would have to work much harder to collect their cash because no one with any serious money wanted to be identified on those disclosure lists as giving money to the opposition.

Because, even though the Supervisor of Elections no longer had to publish those lists, any member of the public could still inspect them.

Most Fiji citizens might not know that. But the one person who would know that was the general secretary of FFP — also the minister for elections, attorney-general and minister for economy.

Now, however, for the first time since 2014, we can do something about our money-and-politics laws.

Those laws need to be reviewed, with a strong eye on the lessons of the past.

But the most critical lesson is probably not about those laws. It is about the climate of fear that enabled one political party to raise millions of dollars to keep itself in power while keeping all of its opponents out of cash.

Some good news?
Finally, for diehard FijiFirst supporters — a small spot of good news in those accounts. Apparently FFP still has 6120 “promotional sulu” in stock.

The sulu, according to the accounts (Note 11), have been “fully expensed”. This is because “realisable value cannot be determined with reasonable accuracy.” This is the way accountants say: “We don’t think anybody wants them so we can’t put any value to them.”

Perhaps to show their loyalty, FFP’s fans could buy the sulu to pay off the $1.6 million debt. This would cost only $270 per sulu. Just thought I’d try to help.

Richard Naidu is a Suva lawyer who writes a regular independent column for The Fiji Times. He has enough sulu. Republished with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka has already started work to achieve the People’s Alliance-led coalition 100-day plan outlined in its manifesto.

He recognises that things such as cost of living, water and electricity outages are existing issues that can be solved after a thorough review and consultative process.

In its manifesto, the party had stated it would consult on price control on basic and zero-rated VAT food items.

During an interview with The Fiji Times, he also voiced plans to grow the economy to a level whereby the revenue and expenditure could “harmonise continuously”.

“We cannot immediately effect reductions because the revenue forecast has been done in the last budget,” he said.

“At the moment, we do not see any signs of any sudden increase in our revenue so we do not want to suddenly increase some of the expenditures and we’ll probably run out this budget according to the forecast, and then bring in those measures that we would like to achieve [with] the budget target for the full budget year.

“But that’ll be after the 100 days. Those that can be done within the 100 days, we’ll have to do.”

Rabuka said he had already met with the permanent secretary of the Prime Minister’s Office and expected an informal Cabinet sitting on Thursday where they would be briefed on the country’s economic situation.

Shayal Devi is a Fiji Times journalist. Republished with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The People’s Alliance Party took an early lead in the Fiji general election vote tally this evening with a total of 21,810 votes recorded after the completion of counting from 470 of the 2071 polling stations.

The governing FijiFirst Party was in second place with 16,515 votes and SODELPA running third with 3684 votes.

The National Federation Party followed with 3256 votes and Unity Fiji in fifth place with 1688 votes.

The other results by party as at the 5pm update provided by the Fijian Elections Office are:

Fiji Labour Party – 1269
We Unite Fiji Party – 1179
All Peoples Party – 614
New Generation Party – 175
Rajendra Sharma (Independent) – 26
Ravinesh Reddy (Independent) – 21

The top five candidates at that update were:

Josaia Voreqe Bainimarama – 11,248
Sitiveni Ligamamada Rabuka – 6738
Lynda Diseru Tabuya – 1397
Siromi Dokonivalu Turaga – 1048
Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum – 927

Counting continues at the National Count Centre and the next update is due to be provided by the Supervisor of Elections at 10pm.

Timoci Vula is a Fiji Times reporter. Republished with permission.

Fiji’s military will respect electoral process – Kalouniwai
RNZ Pacific reports that the Fiji military commander has rejected a request by opposition party leaders to intervene in a dispute over the country’s election process.

Major-General Jone Kalouniwai said the military (RFMF) as an institution would put its trust in the electoral process.

“I wish to reassure the people of Fiji that the RFMF will not respond to [PAP leader Sitiveni ] Rabuka’s insistence or any political party, that we intervene under our responsibilities from Section 131.2 of the 2013 Constitution,” Kalouniwai said.

“The constitutional responsibility of the RFMF section 131.2 does not make any reference to intervening or getting involved with the electoral processes or management of voting or counting of votes with the assistance of the military.”

Kalouniwai explained that using the military in any form during the electoral process was unconstitutional.

The statement came after a group of opposition party leaders called for a halt to vote counting yesterday, demanding an audit of the country’s electoral system.

It was triggered by an anomaly in provisional results that was displayed on a Fiji Election Office results app on Wednesday night.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ. 

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

People’s Alliance leader Sitiveni Rabuka says he has evidence his party is ahead in the 2022 polls, contrary to the official results posted by the Fijian Elections Office.

At a media conference yesterday, he called on the people of Fiji to remain calm and said he would write to President Ratu Wiliame Katonivere, the Republic of Fiji Military Forces Commander Major General Ro Jone Kalouniwai and the Supervisor of Elections Mohammed Saneem to express his dissatisfaction.

“We have discovered that we still have the majority — working on the results that were published in the pink copies of provisional results as per the polling booths,” Rabuka said.

“Those were collected, they were photographed, they were relayed to us and we have a count of those.

“And from all counts that we have, we have enough evidence to support our claim in a court.”

Rabuka said the shift in results after a glitch in the FEO results app had not been satisfactorily explained by Saneem.

“After the glitch last night [Wednesday], before we were actually ahead in the count; when the system came back on there was a big change and not in our favour.

Right to redress
“It is only natural for us, for the people to expect the so-called ‘offended parties’ to have the right to redress.

“The redress I mean — that we will convey our feelings to the Supervisor of Elections to say that we are not satisfied with the outcome after the break.

“The constitutional officer that has the overall responsibility according to the Constitution is the commander RFMF and we will also be communicating with him.”

Rabuka said other constitutional offices they had written to also included the President’s office.

Meri Radinibaravi is a Fiji Times reporter. Republished with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

People’s Alliance leader Sitiveni Rabuka says any successor in government in Fiji — even if they are from an opposition party — should be accepted as a normal process in democratic systems.

Speaking to members of the media after casting his ballot at the Lower Ragg Ave polling station in Namadi, Suva, yesterday, Rabuka said he believed the polls would proceed “very well”, yet the ultimate victory belonged to God.

He also spoke about FijiFirst leader Voreqe Bainimarama feeling confident in this year’s polls.

“I think he’s feeling confident too,” he said, adding opposition parties had to be extremely cautious in the lead-up to the elections.”

When asked whether or not Bainimarama would accept the outcome should he fail to secure a majority win, Rabuka said the incumbent party had avenues such as the Court of Disputed Returns to turn to should the results not be in their favour.

He also said he was hoping for a “flood of votes” to ensure a strong victory.

“I accepted my defeat in 1999, congratulated Mr [Mahendra] Chaudhry outside his house and office and I hope we [Rabuka and Bainimarama] can do that.

‘Normal process’
“We cannot live forever. We cannot rule forever so successions, and even a successor who is from an opposition party, should be accepted as a normal process in democratic systems.”

He was also asked about his message to Fijians of Indian descent.

“I think there’s still fear in them but from 1992 to now, in 30 years it’s been a great era for them.

“They have seen no discriminatory policies introduced by my government. They should be pretty certain that I mean what I said then and what I say now.”

Shayal Devi is a Fiji Times reporter. Republished with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

People’s Alliance candidate Lynda Tabuya claims her 16-year-old daughter was “harassed” by the Fiji Independent Commission Against Corruption (FICAC) officers last week.

Tabuya made this allegation in a video posted on social media.

“This is my daughter coming back from school and they asked her where I was,” she said.

“And she said she didn’t know and then they said to her, ‘tell your mother that FICAC is looking for her’.”

She said this step taken by FICAC was unacceptable.

“You come to my home and harass my child, my 16-year-old who was just coming back from school, just did her exam.

“It’s just very shameful.”

Made daughter panic
Tabuya said this made her daughter panic and worry about what would happen to her mother.

“You know, they could have asked her, is there an adult in the home, can we see someone?

“But no, they came and my family was at home and they rang the doorbell like 10 times, 15 times in a row with my children inside.

“What are you doing FICAC. If you wanted to find me, you know where to find me, you have means to find me, but don’t harass my children.”

• Questions sent to FICAC by The Fiji Times on the claims made by Tabuya remained unanswered.

Rakesh Kumar is a Fiji Times journalist. Republished with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The solution to Fiji’s problems is to vote out the FijiFirst government, says People’s Alliance party leader Sitiveni Rabuka.

Speaking to about 1000 supporters who welcomed Rabuka with cheers of “480” — his votng candidacy number — at the party rally in Labasa last Saturday, he assured voters that his team together with the National Federation Party would do everything in their power to rid Fiji of the “damaging legacy” of Voreqe Bainimarama and Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum.

“Again I stress that we cannot do it alone,” he said.

“We want you to be partners with us in the remaking of Fiji and we will consult with you and seek your ideas in the normal way of democracy.

“I tell you right now, you the people are the change. We the PA candidates are the change and together we are unstoppable.

“We are unstoppable all over the land. We are ready to make history on December 14 and to the candidates, keep preaching the message from our manifesto, tell the people about our planes and keep emphasising that they are the centre of our mission.”

Rabuka assured his supporters of a better future.

“We will be assessing the forestry and timber industry in Vanua Levu, again in close consultation with all stakeholders to identify how we can achieve a good, sustainable return,” he said.

“Tourism too will be given close attention in this part of Vanua Levu and in the area of Savusavu and Taveuni as we want to ensure this crucial enterprise continues to be a key driver of the entire economy.”

Serafina Silaitoga is a Fiji Times reporter. Republished with permssion.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The Fijian Elections Office has given the green light to 342 candidates from nine political parties and two independents to contest the December 14 general election.

Twelve candidates have been rejected and two have withdrawn.

Elections Supervisor Mohammed Saneem said his office had received a total of 356 nominations after candidate nominations closed on Monday.

Saneem said four parties submitted nominations for 55 candidates, which included FijiFirst, SODELPA, the People’s Alliance and the National Federation Party.

The ruling FijiFirst party and the People’s Alliance have all its 55 candidates confirmed to contest the 2022 elections, while the National Federation Party and SODELPA have 54 candidates approved.

The Fiji Labour Party has 42 approved candidates, Unity Fiji has 38, We Unite Fiji has 20, All Peoples Party has 14, and New Generation Party has 5.

“In this election, there are 56 females who have been nominated, and there are 287 males that will be contesting the election. In comparison in 2018, we have 56 females and 179 males,” Saneem said.

“So the male-to-female ratio is 83 percent are males and 16 percent females.”

There will be two independent candidates — both males.

The number of people contesting the polls is higher than in the 2018 election — which had 235 candidates.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ. 

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

“So many detractors were saying, ‘no you won’t get it, the Supervisor of Elections won’t allow it’. I said, ‘well let him just do his work’. And I believe in the goodness of the man. We got it and we’re happy.” — Sitiveni Rabuka, CFL/FijiVillage interview. 8 September 2021

The leader of the new People’s Alliance gives Frank Bainimarama and Aiyaz Sayed-Kahyum has given yet another masterclass in how to win friends and influence people in the Fijian context.

Of course, he doesn’t necessarily “believe in the goodness” of Elections Supervisor Mohammed Saneen, who tried to prevent him from contesting the 2018 election and will do his damnedest to try to exclude him from the 2022 election.

Or maybe he does. It doesn’t matter because Sitiveni Rabuka has spoken well of someone who everyone regards as his nemesis and in doing so has presented himself as magnanimous and humble.

Fijians like that and Rabuka knows it. Which makes it all the more astonishing that Frank Bainimarama and Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum still don’t know it after 15 years in power.

It was Rabuka’s humility and forbearance in the face of an ordeal in the courts before the 2018 election that triggered a wave of community sympathy that manifested itself on election day and took the Bai-Kai duo to the brink of defeat.

Readers of my website will know that in the immediate aftermath of the election, I tried and failed to get Bainimarama to realise that the FijiFirst government’s appearance of arrogance — its vei beci, viavialevu attitude to everything — was the prime cause of its electoral collapse.

But they still don’t get it. And having given them a fright in 2018 but still not having learnt their lesson, I suspect that the Rabuka juggernaut is going to bear down on them in the coming months and flatten them like toads on hot bitumen.

Why? Because the Fijian people are fed up with them, not just the usual burden of longevity in government and people tiring of their increasingly tired faces but a visceral distaste for the manner in which they conduct themselves.

Always right. Never wrong. Always contemptuous. Never, ever humble.

Even some of my closest friends say Rabuka cannot win — that the burden of his two coups in 1987 and the hatred and bitterness that lingers — especially among Indo-Fijians – is too much of a cross to bear, let alone such things as the fiasco of the National Bank collapse under his watch when he was eventually elected prime minister.

But politics is more about perception than substance wherever it is practiced in the world. And is equally true that electors have notoriously short memories, never mind that a great many voters weren’t even born when Rabuka held the reins of power.

I am coming to the view that not only can Rabuka win the next election but probably will.

For many Fijians, the events of 1987, let alone Rabuka’s period in government, aren’t a part of their lived experience. In any event, Bainimarama and Khaiyum have yet to learn the most basic lesson of politics — that oppositions don’t win elections, governments lose them.

And these two conjoined twins — with their chronic hubris and arrogance — are doing everything they possibly can to lose.

I’ve chosen the accompanying selection of photos to illustrate Rabuka’s extraordinary journey from coup-maker in 1987 to the benign figure that the opinion polls now tell us is set to make the most extraordinary comeback in Fijian political history. Provided of course, that Bainimarama and Khaiyum keep to the election timetable and the people still get their say.

There’s “Rambo” – the smiling tough guy and defender of iTaukei rights who forced thousands of Indo-Fijians to leave Fiji post 1987. And there’s Rabuka as Prime Minister in the 1990s forming a warm partnership with the main Indo-Fijian politician, Jai Ram Reddy, that produced the 1997 Constitution and eventually led to Rabuka’s defeat.

There’s the “treasonous” soldier who abolished the monarchy and took Fiji out of the Commonwealth when it wouldn’t accept his takeover. And there is the barefooted Prime Minister at Buckingham Palace making a formal apology to HM the Queen for his act of lese majeste and it being graciously accepted.

The man has had an incredible journey, that’s for sure. And maybe, just maybe, he is going to cement his place in Fijian history next year with an incredible final twist.

Is it in the stars? It doesn’t matter. It’s already in the opinion polls.

And you can bet your last saqamoli that it’s keeping Frank Bainimarama and his puppet master, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, awake at night with agonising intimations of their own political mortality.

Fiji-born Graham Davis is a Walkley Award and Logie Award-winning Australian-based journalist and media consultant. He is publisher of the Grubsheet blog on Fiji affairs. This commentary is republished with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Former Fiji opposition leader Sitiveni Rabuka has submitted his application to register his newly proposed political party — the “People’s Aliance”.

A statement released by the Fijian Elections Office stated that the Registrar of Political Parties, Mohammed Saneem, was now processing the application to register the party.

According to the Political Parties (Registration, Conduct, Funding & Disclosures) Act, an association of persons or an organisation shall not operate, function, represent or hold itself out to be a political party unless it has been registered.

Under the Act, the application for registration of a new proposed political party should be accompanied by a schedule setting out the names, addresses, signatures and voter identification card numbers of at least 5000 members from all four divisions.

Rabuka said the proposed party would have to wait for the result and at the same time plan on what to do in the near future.

He said he would not be able to comment further as the proposed party awaited its application result.

Meanwhile, speaking to The Fiji Times during an interview last week, Rabuka revealed that some people who contested the 2018 general elections had resigned from political parties they represented to join him in contesting the next election.

He confirmed this during an interview at his home in Namadi Heights.

“Some people have resigned from their political parties in the last general elections to join me,” Rabuka said.

“They have shown their support for the next general elections.”

• As a third-ranked military commander, Sitiveni Rabuka staged the first two of four coups d’etat in Fiji in 1987 and was later elected prime minister, serving the country between 1992 and 1999.

Litia Cava is a Fiji Times reporter. This article is republlshed with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz