PM Qarase Plays with Cabinet Lineup

Laisenia Qarase...outwitted Mahendra Chaudhry.

On July 18, Chaudhry thought he'd won a huge victory. The country's Supreme Court agreed with his petition that Qarase had an unavoidable constitutional duty to admit Labour MPs to his 22- member basically Fijian nationalist cabinet in numbers proportionate to the Labour's parliamentary strength. Chaudhry had anticipated seven or eight cabinet appointments for Labour based on a cabinet of about 20 ministers.

The Labour leader, ousted from the Prime Minister's office in May 2000 by anti-Fijian coup, certainly won legal endorsement of an important constitutional principle.

But by the end of August it appeared that Qarase, who since winning power in a September 2001 general election had resisted the FLP's attempts to be part of his cabinet, had outwitted Chaudhry.

Declaring that he would not abandon the small national parties and independent MPs that had given his party, the Soqosoqo Duavata ni Lewenivanua (SDL‹Fijian United Party) the numbers it needed to form a coalition government, Qarase after the court ruling offered the FLP 14 seats to take his cabinet to 36 ministers.

The FLP's initial response was to calculate that on the basis that it was entitled to 17 cabinet jobs. But to have a cabinet that size would be a national embarrassment because of the cost and unwieldy structure of it. Qarase's next ploy was to publish what portfolio responsibilities FLP ministers would have; the disabled, libraries, fair trading and consumer affairs, national parks, recreation, art, culture, heritage, food security, alternative livelihoods, health promotion, natural disasters, state properties, transport, prisons and one minister without portfolio. What's more, or perhaps less, FLP ministers would be junior to Qarase's own since the final approval of decisions within their portfolios would rest with a Qarase minister.

Chaudhry was outraged. Qarase, he said, was playing games by offering portfolios that were a Œlaughing stock' and Œminority' portfolios so that no serious power would be entrusted to Labour Party hands.

Qarase went even further. In a Fijian language broadcast he asserted that since the constitution gave him sole responsibility for choosing minister and selecting portfolios, the convention of collective responsibility would require Labour ministers to support any initiative proposed by him. For instance, they would have to support proposals to amend the Constitution by eliminating the section that enabled Labour to claim places in the SDL-led government. If they wouldn't then they would have to resign. Local lawyers agreed that Qarase was technically correct and thus had snookered Chaudhry.

If he gulped and took an offer Qarase insisted had to be accepted lock, stock and barrel, Chaudhry would be forced into a humiliating position of inferiority. Perhaps it would be best for him to do what Qarase has urged him to do, and that is to take up the role of official Opposition Leader spurned by him after the 2001 election in the hope of landing cabinet places.

Qarase left for the Pacific Islands Forum meeting in Auckland and Chaudhry decided that he had enough breath space to attend a labour organisation meeting in Bangkok, Thailand. But then Qarase delivered what he said was a final ultimatum.

Chaudhry had until August 27 to accept the offer or reject it. If Chaudhry failed to respond, Qarase said, he'd advise the President who to appoint from the 27 Labour Ministers. If Chaudhry ordered his supporters to refuse to accept the appointments, then the President, Ratu Josefa Iloilo was expected to refer the deadlock back to the Supreme Court.

The ruling from that, Qarase apparently hopes, would be that spurning a constitutionally valid offer, Labour would forfeit cabinet place rights.