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The latest call by BIMAN CHAND PRASAD to remove the Political Parties Act cannot be viewed in isolation. It must be understood against a documented pattern: from 2014 to 2024, the Act and its statutory declaration provisions have been serially breached, and now the very law that demanded disclosure and accountability is being targeted for removal.
This is not reform. It is reversal.
The Political Parties Act was introduced to address a long-standing problem in Fiji’s political system: the absence of transparency in financial interests, asset declarations, and political funding. It imposed a clear and simple obligation - those who seek public office must disclose their interests so the public can judge their integrity. That is not draconian. That is democratic.
To now characterise such a framework as oppressive is to turn the argument on its head. The Act does not prevent political participation. It ensures that participation is honest, visible, and accountable. Without it, the system risks sliding back into opacity, where interests remain hidden and scrutiny is avoided.
What gives Prasad's call particular weight is the timeline. Over a full decade, from 2014 to 2024, compliance with the statutory declaration regime has been repeatedly called into question. That history cannot be separated from the present demand to abolish the law. It raises an unavoidable question: Is this about improving the law or escaping it?
The answer matters. Because if those who have struggled to comply with disclosure requirements are allowed to dismantle them, the consequence is not greater freedom. It is diminished accountability.
The argument that political parties cannot function under the current law is equally unpersuasive. They have functioned. Elections have been fought. Governments have been formed. The law has not paralysed the system. What it has done is require discipline.
And that, it appears, is the real point of contention.
Across democracies, disclosure laws are not optional extras. They are the backbone of public trust. Where such laws are weakened or removed, the results are predictable: undeclared interests, hidden transactions, and the gradual erosion of confidence in public institutions. Fiji has already seen the consequences of weak oversight in the past. Repeating that history would be a deliberate choice.
If there are provisions within the Act that require amendment, then let them be identified and debated openly. That is how law reform is conducted. But a wholesale call for removal, without first addressing a decade of non-compliance, lacks both credibility and legitimacy.
The principle is straightforward. Those who seek to change the rules must first show that they have followed them.
Until that happens, this call will be understood not as a defence of democracy, but as an attempt to strip away one of the few remaining safeguards of accountability in Fiji’s political system.
Next Instalment: In his 2023 statutory declaration, Prasad omitted the section requiring a true and factual account of his campaign funding, including expenses and donors. His party candidate, Sashi Kiran, complied with the requirement, yet he did not, even though he was serving as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance in Sitiveni Rabuka’s coalition government. On 5 September 2024, he was facing multiple charges arising from those statutory declarations.
This is not reform. It is reversal.
The Political Parties Act was introduced to address a long-standing problem in Fiji’s political system: the absence of transparency in financial interests, asset declarations, and political funding. It imposed a clear and simple obligation - those who seek public office must disclose their interests so the public can judge their integrity. That is not draconian. That is democratic.
To now characterise such a framework as oppressive is to turn the argument on its head. The Act does not prevent political participation. It ensures that participation is honest, visible, and accountable. Without it, the system risks sliding back into opacity, where interests remain hidden and scrutiny is avoided.
What gives Prasad's call particular weight is the timeline. Over a full decade, from 2014 to 2024, compliance with the statutory declaration regime has been repeatedly called into question. That history cannot be separated from the present demand to abolish the law. It raises an unavoidable question: Is this about improving the law or escaping it?
The answer matters. Because if those who have struggled to comply with disclosure requirements are allowed to dismantle them, the consequence is not greater freedom. It is diminished accountability.
The argument that political parties cannot function under the current law is equally unpersuasive. They have functioned. Elections have been fought. Governments have been formed. The law has not paralysed the system. What it has done is require discipline.
And that, it appears, is the real point of contention.
Across democracies, disclosure laws are not optional extras. They are the backbone of public trust. Where such laws are weakened or removed, the results are predictable: undeclared interests, hidden transactions, and the gradual erosion of confidence in public institutions. Fiji has already seen the consequences of weak oversight in the past. Repeating that history would be a deliberate choice.
If there are provisions within the Act that require amendment, then let them be identified and debated openly. That is how law reform is conducted. But a wholesale call for removal, without first addressing a decade of non-compliance, lacks both credibility and legitimacy.
The principle is straightforward. Those who seek to change the rules must first show that they have followed them.
Until that happens, this call will be understood not as a defence of democracy, but as an attempt to strip away one of the few remaining safeguards of accountability in Fiji’s political system.
Next Instalment: In his 2023 statutory declaration, Prasad omitted the section requiring a true and factual account of his campaign funding, including expenses and donors. His party candidate, Sashi Kiran, complied with the requirement, yet he did not, even though he was serving as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance in Sitiveni Rabuka’s coalition government. On 5 September 2024, he was facing multiple charges arising from those statutory declarations.
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SHAKESPEAREAN IRONY:
NFP candidate Sashi Kiran follows the law. Her leader, Biman Chand Prasad, does not.
*The National Federation Party candidate Sashi Kiran complied with the requirements of the law. By contrast, her party leader, Biman Chand Prasad, repeatedly failed to do so. The NFP stalwart and lawyer Richard Naidu, together with his son, donated to Kiran’s campaign. Her properly completed filing now exposes Prasad and strengthens our long-standing argument that he serially breached the Political Parties Act from 2014 to 2024.
*He is currently facing one count of failing to disclose his directorship in Platinum Hotels and Resorts Ltd in his 2015 declaration.
*Richard Naidu and his legal team are now arguing that this charge should be stayed on the basis that Prasad was charged by the acting FICAC Commissioner, Lavi Rokoika, whose appointment they claim is unlawful.
*As the principal complainant against Biman Prasad, long before the appointments of Malimali and Rokoika, we had also reported him over his 2023 declaration. This was one of several charges he was facing on 5 September 2024, when Suva lawyers Wylie Clarke, Laurel Vaurasi, and others appeared at FICAC headquarters to secure the release of Barbara Malimali from custody. In the ensuing confusion, Prasad escaped being charged that afternoon.
*Biman Prasad has since been formally charged in the “Platinum” non-disclosure case, granted bail, and has resigned as both Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance.
*However, he has not resigned as Leader of the National Federation Party, a remarkable decision given what is now known. That resignation is not the end of the story. In truth, it is only the beginning.
*The central defence narrative advanced by his close ally, donor, and party lawyer Richard Naidu, that the Platinum breach is “ten years old” and merely “historical”, has been decisively undermined by the most inconvenient evidence possible: Prasad’s own 2023 Section 24 declaration, in which he omitted the most critical page of the form, repeating the same type of non-disclosure that gave rise to the Platinum charge.
*This is not a historic lapse. It is a continuing pattern of misconduct, occurring eight years after the Platinum offence that Naidu sought to minimise before the Fiji High Court.
*The contrast with Sashi Kiran’s flawless 2023 declaration, supported by Naidu’s own donations, only deepens the contradiction, and the credibility gap.
*The National Federation Party candidate Sashi Kiran complied with the requirements of the law. By contrast, her party leader, Biman Chand Prasad, repeatedly failed to do so. The NFP stalwart and lawyer Richard Naidu, together with his son, donated to Kiran’s campaign. Her properly completed filing now exposes Prasad and strengthens our long-standing argument that he serially breached the Political Parties Act from 2014 to 2024.
*He is currently facing one count of failing to disclose his directorship in Platinum Hotels and Resorts Ltd in his 2015 declaration.
*Richard Naidu and his legal team are now arguing that this charge should be stayed on the basis that Prasad was charged by the acting FICAC Commissioner, Lavi Rokoika, whose appointment they claim is unlawful.
*As the principal complainant against Biman Prasad, long before the appointments of Malimali and Rokoika, we had also reported him over his 2023 declaration. This was one of several charges he was facing on 5 September 2024, when Suva lawyers Wylie Clarke, Laurel Vaurasi, and others appeared at FICAC headquarters to secure the release of Barbara Malimali from custody. In the ensuing confusion, Prasad escaped being charged that afternoon.
*Biman Prasad has since been formally charged in the “Platinum” non-disclosure case, granted bail, and has resigned as both Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance.
*However, he has not resigned as Leader of the National Federation Party, a remarkable decision given what is now known. That resignation is not the end of the story. In truth, it is only the beginning.
*The central defence narrative advanced by his close ally, donor, and party lawyer Richard Naidu, that the Platinum breach is “ten years old” and merely “historical”, has been decisively undermined by the most inconvenient evidence possible: Prasad’s own 2023 Section 24 declaration, in which he omitted the most critical page of the form, repeating the same type of non-disclosure that gave rise to the Platinum charge.
*This is not a historic lapse. It is a continuing pattern of misconduct, occurring eight years after the Platinum offence that Naidu sought to minimise before the Fiji High Court.
*The contrast with Sashi Kiran’s flawless 2023 declaration, supported by Naidu’s own donations, only deepens the contradiction, and the credibility gap.
5 September 2024: Did Legal Intervention in Malimali’s Release Disrupt Imminent Charges Against Biman Prasad? |  |
*A further and more troubling question arises as to whether the involvement of Wylie Clarke, Laurel Vaurasi, and other legal practitioners in securing the release of Barbara Malimali on 5 September 2024 may have inadvertently interfered with my own complaints then under active consideration by FICAC, in respect of which Biman Prasad was, on the information available to me, due to be charged later that same afternoon. *The timing is not incidental. If, as has been suggested, operational decisions within FICAC shifted immediately following Malimali’s release, it is necessary to examine whether external intervention, however well-intentioned, had the practical effect of disrupting or delaying prosecutorial processes already in motion.
*This is not an allegation of impropriety, but a legitimate inquiry into whether the sequence of events on that day may have impacted the integrity and continuity of enforcement action arising from my complaints.
