By RUSSELL HUNTER Those in Fiji patiently awaiting their chance to vote out the Bainimarama dictatorship – and there are very many – are dreaming. For there will be no general election in 2014 or any other year – at least not one that the non-China world might recognise as being worthy of the name. Already we see the strategy emerging. The registered political parties, in their advised view, met with the requirements of the Khaiyum decree in that they have declared their personal assets and those of their children – that is, those under the age of 18. Here it seems that Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, not for the first time, has stuffed up the decree, but that should be no incentive for glee among the party faithful. For Khaiyum still holds all the cards. Another correcting decree is not out of the question. Nor is an investigation by the regime-controlled military-police-courts apparatus to eliminate party officials and activists on trumped up charges. For if – read when – Bainimarama can jail or otherwise dismantle all opposition, what need is there for an election? In an echo of the People’s Charter (whatever happened to that?) he would declare himself accepted by the people and carry on business as usual. He will not and cannot sanction any election that contains the remotest risk of his defeat. He might as well offer to swap places with George Speight. Remember, there is still a warrant for his arrest on sedition charges and any independent police force will still want to interview him as their primary person of interest in the November 2000 CRW murders. A bald statement of his acceptance by the people, then, seems the most likely outcome though a rigged election is still possible. For Bainimarama must know by now that he cannot win in any free and fair election – in the internationally accepted sense – gauge of the populace’s will. Of course they’ll smile at his village visits, accept his handouts and praise his “achievements”. But they will not vote for him in a secret ballot. For they know his record – and he knows theirs. Bainimarama famously stated that he did not trust the people and he can hardly complain if he finds that the people reciprocate.  Traditional camouflage: villagers not stupid |   Trial run for rigging? But it will take more than talk to dislodge Bainimarama. “It’s the economy stupid” has become a clichéd quotation but in Bainimarama’s case it’s one to which he ought to pay close attention. For it is more likely than any talk of election to cause his downfall. He’s going to run out of money. Under Bainimarama’s ministership, the sugar industry is in its death throes. The Fiji Sugar Corporation is all but insolvent, depending on the regime for its day to day survival. The $80 a tonne payout will barely keep farmers on the land and even that would have had to be borrowed, most likely from the long suffering FNPF though in the presence of yet another broken pledge – transparency – it’s not possible to be certain. What is sure is that the FSC didn’t have the money. Again under the Bainimarama ministry sugar production has halved. Buyers are turning away and part of last year’s production is still unsold. Propaganda will not save the sugar industry. But Bainimarama’s performance as finance minister is if anything worse. His pledge to slash government borrowing has become a subject of gallows humour as government debt has ballooned in an orgy of borrowing – mostly from China – to fund his ramshackle regime and to keep the squaddies loyal. Again, in the new “transparent” Fiji it’s impossible to be certain of government liabilities but there seems little doubt that state debt as well guarantees of loans by government entities has tripled since 2006. Estimates vary between $5.5 billion and $7+ billion – but even the lower end of the range is a chilling indictment of Bainimarama’s mishandling of a national economy cruelly exposed to world economic conditions. Any downturn will hammer Fiji while an upturn will take time to assist, in however small a way, its import-dominated economy. Meanwhile China seems to have lost much of its appetite for Fiji debt while the new regime seems more likely to place its relationship with Australia much higher than its interest in Fiji. |
| To them, his word is worthless. He is still in their eyes the man who made so many bold promises in his broadcast takeover address of December 5, 2006. He solemnly pledged an election in six months, that no minister in his interim government would stand, that racism would end, that government borrowing would be reined in and, of course that no member of the RFMF would benefit from this coup. He has reneged – spectacularly so – on every one. He has slashed pensions and at the same time looted the nation’s savings for his very dubious schemes. He has alienated the Methodist Church, the mainstream chiefs, even larger sections of his own military. It would be a grave error to imagine that villagers are not aware of this. And Bainimarama’s political record is, to put it mildly, poor. On the day he is dislodged from power, the dictator is likely to face charges that include his laughingly titled Truth and Justice drive during the 2006 election campaign under which batches of soldiers were ordered out into the villages to blatantly campaign against the sitting government and urge villagers to cast their votes instead for a new party. It failed to return a solitary member and its leader lost his deposit, turning up later as the minister for deportations before he discovered some conscience and quit Bainimarama’s illegal regime. What’s more, it’s certain that in 2006 even his own squaddies declined to vote the way he ordered them to. Certainly none voted for his favoured party while overseas voting patterns strongly indicate the soldiers’ support for the SDL. Since then, of course, the troops have enjoyed generous pay rises but Fiji will probably never know if it’s enough to buy their votes. Bainimarama has thumbed his nose at the international community, the European Union, the Commonwealth, the IMF and the world’s labour unions. He thinks he is using the Pacific Forum, especially its Melanesian Spearhead Group, but is in fact used by them while at home his frequent travels, often with a large retinue of family and hangers-on, as well as his constant need for a heavily armed bodyguard team are subjects of much tanoa talk. |  International union pressure Fiji’s economy is also exposed to action by the world labour movement – action that draws closer by the day. Any concerted effort would mean disaster for Bainimarama and blaming it all on Australia won’t help him. He is in effect cornered if that happens. He can’t go back on the trade union decrees and he can’t survive a prolonged effort by the world’s labour organisations. Quite what he or world labour will do remains to be seen. He’s been praying, of course for a change of government in Australia, and his prayers will be answered in September when the Labour government of Julia Gillard (or possibly Kevin Rudd) is removed. But that’s probably as far as it will go. The most likely new foreign minister, Julie Bishop, has talked of re-engagement with Fiji (just as Bob Carr tried to do) but there is as yet no evidence of any intention to overturn policy. And that’s because the very existence of the Bainimarama regime flies in the face of what most Australians, Labour or Liberal, hold dear – democracy, human rights and a fair go for all. Ms Bishop will find it difficult to sell any policy that goes against those group feelings. Indeed she may find it more practical to steer well clear of the issue. For all of those reasons and more 2014 will be a stern test for Voreqe Bainimarama. While his almost certain failure of that test won’t end his regime it will further erode his standing at home and abroad. And with his bag of political capital all but empty he can’t afford that. russellfji@gmail.com Editor: The article is also on the Opinion page |
