Politics
Rift Between Fiji's Qarase and Chaundry Keeps Widening
Now political stability remains precarious
The outlook for rapprochement between Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase and the real Opposition Leader, but also would-be member of his cabinet, Mahendra Chaudhry, is not good. Not that those relations between them were ever exactly cordial.
Late last year after an informal "talanoa" (informal talk) as it was called, dialogue session arranged by Dr Sitiveni Halapua, of the Pacific Islands Development Programme in Hawaii, the two politicians appeared to be prepared to edge towards a working relationship. Since then rancour between the two has only deepened.
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Opportunities for repairing race relations between indigenous Fijians and Indian communities that were wrecked by an anti-Indian coup against a Chaudhry-led Labour Party government in 2000 lie wasted.
Political stability thus remains precarious, despite government¹s assertions to the contrary, with an inevitable depressing impact on efforts by the government to restore investment confidence in a sluggish economy. Since late February, Qarase has suffered political setbacks for his campaign to keep the aggressive Chaudhry out of his cabinet.
The Fiji Court of Appeal of five foreign judges upheld Chaudhry's contention that the constitution required Qarase to grant him seven or eight places in his 20-member cabinet.
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It ruled that a final decision on this point lay with a high court judge, Anthony Gates, who in an earlier ruling declared that a constitution claimed to have been abrogated by the military after the May 2000 civilian-led coup was still in place.
Gates had not dealt with the appeal court referral by the time this edition of Pacific Magazine went to press. In a separate ruling, Gates annulled the election of parliament¹s lone National Federation Party MP, Prem Singh, appointed as a stand-by Opposition Leader by President, Ratu Josefa Iloilo, after Chaudhry refused the appointment because, he said, he should have a cabinet job.
Gates said Singh's Nadi Indian communal seat would have gone to a Labour contestant if election officials had not wrongly rejected more than a thousand votes cast for the Labour man. Singh's exclusion brought the appointment of eight members of the Senate nominated by himself and the president in question.
It also gave Labour an opportunity for mounting three other election petition challenges, thus whittling away the security of Qarase¹s coalition government's parliamentary majority. In mid March, the Fiji Supreme Court ruled that the Labour Party was entitled to all the Senate¹s eight opposition seats, another blow for Qarase.
Both he and Singh said they would appeal to the Supreme Court against the cabinet structure and Opposition Leader's decision.
But by then the integrity of the Supreme Court was itself in question. Sir Timoci Tuivaga, the controversial Fiji Chief Justice, whose resignation was demanded in 2001 by the Fiji Law Society, critical of his role in supporting the formation of a military government after the May 2000 coup, named himself and the chief justices of Papua New Guinea and Samoa as the successor of the Supreme Court he purported to abolish in 2000.
Supreme Court judges are selected by the Judicial Services Commission, comprising the chief justice, the Public Service Commission chairman, and Fiji Law Society president, currently Chen Bunn Young, Tuivaga's loudest critic.
Young said he hadn't been called to the selection meet. Tuivaga said that he had been, but had not responded. Young is now preparing to legally contest the Supreme Court appointments. In March, Qarase attended the Common-wealth Heads of Government meeting in Coolum, Queensland.
Suspended from the Commonwealth after the coup, Fiji was restored to it after the restoration of a democratic government last September.
At Coolum, where the meeting took place, he was gratified by a reception that included a tete-a-tete with Queen Elizabeth.
But he was angered to learn of the presence of Chaudhry for meetings with the Indian and Mauritius delegations. Chaudhry, he said, was bent on sabotaging Fiji's efforts to secure full international acceptance of its style of government - one that couldn't work with Chaudhry¹s presence in cabinet.
Chaudhry told a local newspaper: "I am not bothered by his rantings and ravings."
