“Fake News” was the catch phrase of the 2018 Fiji Elections – the second democratic elections since Commodore, now Prime Minister, Voreqe Bainimarama, carried out Fiji’s fourth coup in 2006.

Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama … reelected with easily the strongest personal vote in the Fiji general election but his FijiFirst party has lost ground since 2014. Image: SK/PMC

That FijiFirst with 227,241 (50.02 percent) votes won the elections with just over half of 458,532 votes cast, giving it 27 seats, is testimony to how nervous it was going into the elections.

The Social Democratic Liberal Party (SODELPA) won 181,072 votes (39.85%), close to 40 percent of the vote and gets 21 seats in parliament, doing better than it did in 2014, while the National Federation Party completes the makeup with 33,515 votes (7.38 percent) and three seats in the 51-seat Parliament.

“SODELPA – It’s strong indigenous propaganda supported by some deliberate misinformation contributed to a much improved performance, compared with 2014,” said the pro-government newspaper Fiji Sun today in its analysis of the elections.

This was a quaint way of accusing SODELPA of indulging in fake news by the government’s self-confessed propaganda organ.

FijiFirst … triumphs again in a general election, but only just. Image: SK/PMC

In his statement on winning the elections yesterday, published in the Fiji Sun, Bainimarama took the unusual step of accusing the other national daily newspaper, The Fiji Times, of colluding with the opposition in a thinly veiled attack on SODELPA.

“These same disruptive politicians of old, aided and abetted by The Fiji Times did not care to tell you the truth – the truth that iTaukei (Native) land is not only safe like never before under our Constitution but as total land holding has grown under FijiFirst,” he said in a statement.

‘Dishonest politicians’
“In fact it was only under the leadership of these same dishonest politicians that iTaukei land was actually and permanently alienated.

“Their lies and deception knew no boundaries, as individuals, whole communities and religious sentiments were slandered and belittled in an atmosphere of political deceit. They were willing to create economic chaos and undermine our economic future in their greed to win government,” Bainimarama said in his statement from New Zealand, where he was attending his brother Sevenaia’s funeral.

The 48-hour media blackout period – extended until Saturday, November 17, to allow for 22 polling venues to be opened for 7,458 people who were affected by floods – made it easy for social media trolls to make mischief.

At a press conference during the election, Ashwin Raj, the CEO of the Media Industry Development Authority (MIDA), admitted to being caught out by the ferocity of fake news and the social media.

In an interview with ABC’s Pacific Beat programme. Pacific Freedom Forum (PFF) co-chair Bernadette Carreon put her finger on the problem.

She said the vacuum left by the media blackout had led to fake news and misinformation being shared.

“The media is not allowed to publish any information regarding the election and so there have been reports of some fake websites coming up during the blackout and we call it fake news because it could potentially influence the voting,” she said.

Fact checking
“Media or the readers cannot fact check because the media is not allowed to air any news or information about the election process.”

That fake news dominated the media at the Fiji Elections Office (FEO) for more than two days was hardly surprising – as nothing could be reported on the campaign or the candidates.

FijiFirst’s financial statement for the nine months until 30 September 2018. Image: SK/Twitter

It has been reported on Twitter that FijiFirst, from the financial declarations last month, spent $1.9 million on advertising and $80,000 on social media as of 30 September 2018. (See image)

However, the media blackout and fake news did not have any influence on the Monday before the elections when SODELPA leader Sitiveni Rabuka faced the High Court for the appeal by the Fiji Independent Commission Against Corruption (FICAC) against charges of corruption which were initially dismissed.

The appeal was subsequently dismissed as well to loud cheers from his supporters.
The media scrum was a sight to behold as Rabuka emerged from courtroom victorious accompanied by his protégé Lynda Tabuya.

With more than 2000 people singing Fijian songs in harmony he was escorted down the steps of Parliament which backs onto the court house.

It appeared to be in defiance of the government which have for so long subdued the Fijian people and their natural exuberance.

Sigh of relief
It clearly signalled the portent of what was to come two days later in the elections, and one shudders to think of what could have happened that day had he lost the court case.

But, for now a collective sigh of relief in Fiji, relief that stability continues with murmurings of corruption, relief that a strong opposition is in place, and 10 women have made to Parliament making up 20 percent of the seats, but it bodes for uncertainty in the 2022 elections.

As Professor Jon Fraenkel from Victoria University of Wellington, a visitor and speaker at the University of the South Pacific, told the Australian Associated Press (AAP) on November 14.

“Many indigenous voters are wary of the endless polarisation and mind games of FijiFirst, and there is also considerable anti-Muslim sentiment targeted at the Attorney-General and his many appointees.”

A third term in government is difficult for any party and the warnings are already been written on the wall for FijiFirst – the people have spoken and will again.

Sri Krishnamurthi is a journalist and Postgraduate Diploma in Communication Studies student at Auckland University of Technology. He was attached to the University of the South Pacific’s Journalism Programme, filing for USP’s Wansolwara News and the AUT Pacific Media Centre’s Asia Pacific Report.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

A repentant Sitiveni Rabuka, the Fiji military strongman who sparked off the country’s “coup culture” in 1987, admits he was “coerced” by the defeated Alliance party into carrying out the first coup.

Three decades after I watched Lieutenant-Colonel Sitiveni Rabuka walking Parliamentarians out of the back door of Parliament at the point of a gun on 14 May 1987, dressed in a light-blue suit, he has told me who the architects of the coup were – and his regrets about it all.

It has taken 31 years, and Rabuka, the face of the 1987 Fiji coups, is becoming more open and vocal about who were really behind the South Pacific’s first military takeover.

READ MORE: Background on the four Fiji coups and the 2009 constitutional ‘half coup’

Hardly a day goes by when Sitiveni Rabuka, now leader of the Social, Liberal, Democratic Party (SODELPA), isn’t asked to recall that fateful day that changed the course of history in Fiji.

The people of Fiji who have joined the diaspora in other parts of the Pacific, Commonwealth and beyond still view him with suspicion, if not the hatred of old – believing the old adage that a “leopard can’t change his spots”.

It is for that reason I was a little apprehensive to meet the man who loomed larger in the imagination than Freddy Krueger in A Nightmare on Elm Street. Unlike the slasher, Rabuka was real. So was the impact of his coups.

But, to be greeted by “bula” followed by his disarming and wide Fijian smile makes one realises that Rabuka, who has been on the international stage since he became Prime Minister in 1992, is now very much a diplomat.

Gone was the soldier
Gone was the soldier and in his place sat a casual, relaxed, worldly politician ready to speak his truth with remarkable honesty.

Taking him back to 1987, the burning questions were: whether he thought that the coup’s objectives were met? And who were the unseen faces behind the takeover?

Rabuka reiterated that the coup was instigated by the Alliance Party and its leader, the late then Prime Minister Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara (who later became president). Each time he talks on the subject, Rabuka seems to provide a little more detail than before.

“1987 was really political in the sense that the Alliance leaders at the time wanted something done, wanted something changed, and yes (I took the action),” Rabuka says, referring to the meetings he had with Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara that led to his actions – the leader of the now-defunct Alliance party.

“The only way to change the situation now is to throw this constitution out of the window.”

These were the words of Sir Ratu Mara,” he told Dr Sue Onslow in an interview in Suva on Thursday, 10 April 2014.

Time and time again he apologised for the coups in 1987.

‘I have apologised’
“I have said that before, I have apologised for the hurt to the people for the coups,” he says without hesitation.

“I knew they [the coups] were wrong and because I apologised I was forgiven. I apologised to the Indians at the time on the very next “Girmit” [agreement] day on May 14 the following year [1988]– one year after the first coup.

“I attended the “Girmit” festival and apologised.”

Multiculturalism is very much a part of his lexicon now, although he does not subscribe to the theory of assimilation and homogeneity in all cultures and races.

“The biggest challenge to multiracialism all over the world is understanding — crosscultural understanding,” he says.

“As long as we understand each other we can co-operate, not integrate and not assimilate but we can harmoniously co-exist.”

If SODELPA wins next month’s election what does he intend to be his first action on the steps of Parliament?

‘I’m anticipating victory’
“In Parliament I will be thanking the people for giving us a majority. I’m anticipating that we’ll be victorious, and I will thank the people of Fiji for giving us their confidence, particularly in me.

“The many that I have hurt, they may not vote for me this time, but more and more are coming around and embracing me.”

He admits to trying to form a coalition against FijiFirst, but not all – like Roko Tupou Draunidalo and the Hope party – were buying into it. That she has no time for Rabuka is evident in her frequent, public outbursts.

“I don’t know, maybe because her step-father was Dr [Timoci] Bavadra [elected Prime Minister in 1987 when he carried out the coup] and maybe she has not forgiven me since 87,” says Rabuka.

“We’ve spoken to everyone except for Tupou. Her party was not formed when we were doing the coalition talks and she just went straight ahead and said, ‘no, we’ll never coalesce with SODELPA as long as Rabuka is involved’”.

Besides domestic politics, Rabuka is keeping an eye on the geopolitical situation. The indications are that he is uncomfortable with the growing presence of China in Fiji.

“China is an international player but not a traditional partner and we should consolidate our co-operation with our traditional partners – people we know and whose systems are similar to ours.”

Chinese base plan ‘blocked’
China announced it was giving Fiji 30 million RMB yuan (FJ$9.5 million) in aid last month.

Just a day later, Australian media reported that it had been revealed that Canberra had  successfully blocked China from funding a major regional military base in Fiji.

In August, Australia and Fiji jointly announced the Black Rock military base in Nadi was to be redeveloped as a regional hub for police and peacekeeping training, according to a report by Radio New Zealand.

“If it is aid it is aid, but it is not really aid because it has to be a reciprocal arrangement and I don’t know what that reciprocal arrangement is.”

There were rumours of China setting up a naval base near Suva like those reportedly planned for Vanuatu and Papua New Guinea.

However, Rabuka does not think it is plausible and would require much more than simply making a military decision.

“Bases are government decisions, not military decisions, I don’t think they can just come in and set up a base without the government [approving it].

Government should allocate
“The government should accept the aid as aid to the government and allocate it, instead of the aid going straight to the military,” says the man who should know.

After selling land he owned in Savusavu, Vanua Levu, to a Chinese from Brisbane in July, Rabuka was labelled a hypocrite.

However, he defended his actions by saying in the Fiji Sun: “I had an arms-length dealing with him. The name was in Chinese, but the address was from Brisbane.”

Rabuka’s road to Damascus didn’t just seemingly happen overnight but through all his trials and tribulations, and he isn’t finished yet.

He still has battles to fight, this time as a politician for SODELPA, not as a soldier.

Sri Krishnamurthi is a journalist and Postgraduate Diploma in Communication Studies student at Auckland University of Technology. He is attached to the University of the South Pacific’s Journalism Programme, filing for USP’s Wansolwara News and the AUT Pacific Media Centre’s Asia Pacific Report.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Fiji’s Social Democratic Liberal Party (SODELPA) leader Sitiveni Rabuka is confident of winning government benches in the 2018 general election.

SODELPA, the largest opposition party from the 2014 election in Fiji, currently has 15 seats while FijiFirst has 32 and the National Federation Party has three in a 50-seat Parliament.

SODELPA was established in 2013 after the dissolution of its predecessor, the then ruling Soqosoqo ni Duavata ni Lewenivanua (SDL) party.

“I’m looking at, at least 28 seats, which gives us a majority. I have calculated on the basis of the 18 seats that we held. We won 18 seats but then lost three – two to debt and one to imprisonment,” said the enigmatic leader of SODELPA.

“They were replaced by the next three on the list, but those three only missed out by a few votes because of our total party vote.”

Rabuka, notorious for executing the Pacific’s first coup in 1987, says his party is all geared up for the election and ready to start campaigning.

“We are giving out the party message about consolidating the (indigenous) Fijian institutions – the iTaukei institutions and remembering the bible,” says the former prime minister.

“It is a long struggle.”

SODELPA leader Sitiveni Rabuka at the party office in Suva. Picture: SRI KRISHNAMURTHI

Coalition deal sought
As for strategy, he has tried to do his utmost to get the other parties around the table in a coalition deal to take on the ruling FjiFirst party.

“I tried to form a coalition before the elections but based on the views of their supporters, they preferred not to be seen holding hands with me, so they decided no, we’ll go it alone.”

Rabuka seemed to undergo a change in attitude in the years after his coup. He formed a partnership with the then National Federation Party leader, Jai Ram Reddy, to usher in the more equitable 1997 Constitution.

But ironically, their coalition suffered a humiliating defeat in the 1999 election to the Fiji Labour Party led group.

Rabuka made it clear that a grand coalition with FijiFirst, post-election, is not on the cards and will never be, as long as he remains leader of SODELPA.

“With FijiFirst, we have not considered that, and I will not consider it,” he says as a bottom line.

“We are diametrically opposed in our views,” he says with a stern gaze.

Record of service
And, why should people vote for SODELPA, which is looked suspiciously in some quarters as a nationalist party, unlike FijiFirst, which claims multiracialism as its manifesto?

“We believe we have the record of service, a leadership that listens to the people,” said Rabuka, who was prime minister of Fiji from 1992-1999.

“We have compassionate leadership, and we have the will to do what is right, with malice towards none.”

He has several planks on which to campaign this election, and he outlines them:

“We are going to campaign on social justice, looking after the marginalised, the weak in society; we will continue with the social programmes in the past and spread the national wealth as widely as possible,” he says, reciting his well-practised mantra.

He denies notions that SODELPA is perceived as an iTaukei (indigenous) party.

“Some view us as that, but it is not factual, as we have shown,” he says.

“We are just carrying on what started in the Deed of Cession (1874), where we promote civilisation and Christianity.

Good governance
“We increase industry and trade, and good governance in the interest of the natives, as well as the white population – those are words of the Deed of Cession.

“We continue in the same trend as continued in the colonial days; the Alliance days, the SVT days and the SDL days.”

He vehemently disagrees with the abolition of the Great Council of Chiefs (Bose Levu Vakaturaga), disbanded in March 2012 by current Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama.

“It was the wrong thing to do because the universal cry now is for indigenous institutions since the declaration on the rights of the indigenous peoples on December 13, 2007.

“The Great Council of Chiefs (GCC) should be re-established. They have no executive role, but they have a very important mediatory and advisory role.”

As for the claims that the GCC had always tried to be involved in the politics of Fiji, Rabuka admits there is some truth to that accusation.

“They have always tried that. I found that during my time, I had to stand my ground as prime minister and chief executive officer of the government of Fiji.

“I used to say, ‘you are advising me on indigenous matters, on matters of iTaukei, I listen, but I rule in the interest of the nation as a whole’.”

Rabuka has become a consummate politician, a long way from the days when he was third-in-command in the military in 1987, carrying out the orders of the then beaten Alliance government and staging a coup.

Sri Krishnamurthi is a journalist and Postgraduate Diploma in Communication Studies student at Auckland University of Technology. He is attached to the University of the South Pacific’s Journalism Programme, filing for USP’s Wansolwara News and the AUT Pacific Media Centre’s Asia Pacific Report.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

When I left Fiji 30 years ago, a week after the first coup in 1987, I planned to write a book titled “The flight of the myna” – a pesky, noisy bird, which can talk if trained and was introduced to Fiji by our forefathers from India.

The book wasn’t to be, but that very thought crossed my mind again as the plane taxied down the runaway to a halt at Suva’s Nausori International Airport.

I had been back to Fiji only once before in 30 years – but very briefly to the West, not Suva, the bustling Capital City.

My first impressions in the night arrival were that houses were lit up everywhere, signalling a population growth – Fiji now has a population of 913,537 (according to the World Population Review website, the official census in 2007 had it at 837,200) and is tipped to surpass the 1 million mark by 2020.

Suva and its surrounding towns of Nasinu, Nausori and Lami has an estimated combined population 330,000 – small wonder then of population growth, which can lead to problems akin to New Zealand.

Homelessness, poverty and housing shortages are today’s reality for the government that will take office after this year’s general election, the second since the 2006 coup.

At the same time, there it was — McDonald’s — with its golden arches, seemingly as busy as the restaurant in downtown Auckland, and Damodar City Centre, a mall like any other, owned by the same family that was heavily invested in movies and movie houses from 30 years ago.

A mall and McD’s signified some wealth, and there is little doubt that Fiji has its fair share of the wealthy, combined with the traffic, just as bad as Auckland’s.

Bustling city
In many respects, Suva remains the same bustling city with the same charming smile and a friendly “bula”, regardless of opportunistic crime, with the “street boys” sometimes targeting unwary visitors and inebriated revelers.

As an academic said: “We have car sales as a big business, because people can hop into their cars and drive to malls.”

Three decades ago you drove, walked or caught on open-air rattler of a bus to “town”.

Malls? What were they?

As for cellphones – they have them everywhere and anywhere, creating the same social problems of any major city – killing conversation and dialogue.

However, the question remains – where is the investment and money coming from?

“Fiji now owes over $500 million to China which amounts to be about 40 percent of all our external debt,” suggests economist Professor Biman Prasad of the National Federation Party.

However, Fiji’s Economy Minister Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum wasn’t as concerned and earlier this year said the World Bank had done a thorough analysis of the national debt and was convinced that it was manageable. Loans are used to strengthen infrastructure and stimulate the economy.

China concerns
China’s “One Belt, One Road” policy is cause for concern long term, and its growing influence in Fiji is alarming for some. Not just Fiji, but for the whole Pacific.

Other investments, anecdotally, come from the myriad of people, about 200,000 who left Fiji after the coups – returning, because they can get their citizenship reinstated.

They are coming home as business entrepreneurs and investors and that is very noticeable in the popular drinking holes.

While the smiles are genuine, there is always a feeling of a cloud hovering around, and it’s just not the media decrees that are doing it.

Every person of note and authority seems to be walking around with a well-thumbed copy of the 2013 Constitution in their back pockets.

The dog-eared constitutions. Some with post-it notes, are ready to be pulled out at will, citing chapter and section – much akin to the holy books.

Regardless of the bustling nature of Suva, famous iTaukei smiles and being readily approachable, with their laid-back style of Fiji time, where appointments are seldom kept on the dot – paradise is troubled.

Shoulder looks
You always get the feeling of someone looking over shoulder, muted closed discussions in hushed tones of politics in Fiji – as the Second World War saying goes: “Walls have ears”.

But to get into conversation about politics is a revelation: most people have a view, many of them intelligent, and a surprise to the ears of a supposed-leprechaun who has been away for 30 years.

As a frustrated lawyer at the iconic Holiday Inn said: “Do we want good roads or do we want free speech?” Or the doctor who beamed and said: “There are issues around land.”

However, Fiji is between the devil and the deep blue sea, for a country that is weary and yearns for the stability of the past. It can stay with current FijiFirst government (which gained 60 percent of the vote in 2014) or venture into the unknown. The election, just weeks away, will reveal which direction the voters choose to go.

So, as the old motto from the old Fiji Visitors Bureaus used to say, “Fiji, the way the world should be”.

Exactly, the view of myna bird.

Sri Krishnamurthi is a journalist and Postgraduate Diploma in Communication Studies student at Auckland University of Technology. He is attached to The University of the South Pacific’s Journalism Programme, filing for USP’s Wansolwara News and the AUT Pacific Media Centre’s Asia Pacific Report.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz