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Fiji coup delayed by rugby match truly odd, analysts say

Fiji's military coup last week will go down as one of world's strangest after it was trumpeted for months, delayed by a rugby match and then conducted by troops advertising rental cars.

The way in which events unfolded left regional experts scratching their heads.

The Pacific island nation's military first replaced Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase with a dumbfounded, elderly army doctor, and then invited any Fijians to apply in writing for the vacated Cabinet and civil service posts.

"While the coup was a very serious event that will probably have disastrous consequences, the whole thing had a kind of ludicrous edge to it," said Australian National University Pacific expert Sinclair Dinnen.

It was a long, tense and odd build-up to the moment when military head Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama, resplendent in his full uniform, finally announced he had taken over the presidency.

He then sacked the elected government, yet insisted the move was legal.

"It's been a very bizarre time," said Australia-based political academic Brij Lal in Suva.

"For one thing, it's the most publicized coup in the history of the world, they kept advertising it, which is unusual by any standards," he said.

Qarase traveled to New Zealand last week to meet Bainimarama on the sidelines of the christening of the commander's granddaughter, and afterwards all but ceded to the commander's growing list of demands.

The military chief was however still not satisfied and immediately ordered a menacing firing exercise in Suva, while issuing Qarase with a Dec. 1 deadline to capitulate or face ejection from power in a "clean-up" campaign.

But when the high-noon deadline came, Bainimarama was not in his command center, but at a rugby match between the military and the police.

There was time for the coup after the game, he explained.

"I maintain my demands and the deadline still stands and I will make a commitment to my stand after the rugby match," the commander said.

In the meantime, some troops traveled around the city in rental vans advertising for companies.

When Bainimarama finally announced the bloodless coup he then sacked dissenting civil servants, and said he would advertise for candidates to fill the Cabinet.

One cynical foreign resident of Suva applied for the job of vice president in a letter published in the Fiji Sun newspaper poking fun at the coup leader..

"Unlike [sacked Vice President] Ratu Joni [Madraiwiwi], I have no respect at all for the law, but I am skilled in the art of rhetoric," the writer said.
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