The Fijian military had been deployed to maintain “law and order,” Fijian Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama said yesterday, as the former coup leader refused to concede defeat after a close election.
Bainimarama, who has led Fiji since coming to power in a 2006 military putsch, cited unsubstantiated reports of post-vote ethnic violence as the reason for the deployment.
“So long as it is our responsibility to serve in government, we will fulfill our duty to every Fijian’s safety,” he said in his first public comments since the election on Wednesday last week.
Photo: AFP
That vote looks set to end Bainimarama’s long rule, with an opposition coalition cobbled together by another former Fijian prime minister who came to power in a coup, Sitiveni Rabuka, securing enough seats for a parliamentary majority.
However, Bainimarama has refused to concede defeat and his allies have delayed the parliament sitting to nominate Rabuka as the next prime minister.
Fiji has been rocked by four coups and a military mutiny in the past 35 years. There are growing concerns Bainimarama is preparing for the military to step into the political process again.
Photo: REUTERS
His main ally, Fijian Police Commissioner Sitiveni Qiliho, earlier said he has unspecified “intelligence” about “planned civil unrest,” as he sought to justify the military deployment.
The military has wide powers to intervene in politics under the Fijian constitution, holding “overall responsibility” at all times for ensuring “the security, defense and well-being of Fiji and all Fijians.”
The New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs was the first from a neighboring country to urge restraint after news of the military deployment was made public.
“We encourage all parties to allow the constitutional process to play out,” a ministry spokesperson said.
Fijian military commander Jone Kalouniwai is said to have assured foreign diplomats before the vote took place that a coup was not on the cards.
Jon Fraenkel, a professor at Victoria University in Wellington who recently returned from Fiji, said the military’s assurances “have to be very strongly questioned.”
News that the opposition had reached a coalition deal saw Fijians pour onto the streets to celebrate what they believed was the end of a decade and a half of semi-authoritarian rule.
While not an outright autocrat, Bainimarama has frequently had his government use the legal system to sideline opponents, silence critics and muzzle the media.
Soon after the coalition deal was struck, police expressed concern about reports of post-election “stoning incidents” and violence against the Indo-Fijian minority, which has tended to support Bainimarama.
The force later said the reports had not been fully investigated, but Qiliho yesterday doubled down on claims of internecine strife.
“More information and reports are received by the Fiji Police Force and Republic of Fiji Military Forces of threats made against minority groups who are now living in fear,” he said.
Those claims were rejected by Mahendra Chaudhry, the country’s first Indo-Fijian prime minister, who was ousted in a coup in 2000.
“I see no evidence of unrest here, people are calm and they are waiting for the president to convene parliament so that a prime minister is elected,” he said.
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