People’s Democratic Party leader Lynda Tabuya yesterday (7 December 2017) brushed aside rumours claiming she was joining the Social Democratic Party (SODELPA). “I am not a member of SODELPA, I remain a leader of PDP,” she said. “As a party leader it is in the mandate of the management board to continue talks with other parties and it is the mandate of my management board to continue talks with SODELPA just like I am with NFP (National Federation Party) and the smaller parties about the way forward.” Ms Tabuya said she was not amongst the 51 candidates approved by SODELPA. Fiji Sun, 8 December 2017
A day later after her Lasulasu
OPERATION KIDACALA:
RABUKA'S 30th Candidate IS....Lynda Tabuya
[Sitiveni] Rabuka says the newly chosen SODELPA Vice President Vijay Singh and Lynda Tabuya have personally accepted the challenge in resigning from PDP and joining SODELPA. Former PDP Leader Lynda Tabuya says they are glad to unite with SODELPA to fight the 2018 general elections. Tabuya says they needed to rethink their strategies moving forward. She says pre‑elections coalitions is just not legally possible in the current election system. Tabuya says they have chosen to join SODELPA because their policies are similar:
Fijivillage, 9 December 2017
Fijileaks: Questions to Lynda Tabuya and Vijay Singh:
1) Have you two resigned from the PDP?
2) If so, when did you resign?
3) Who accepted your resignations?
4) Who is temporarily in charge of PDP?
5) When did you join SODELPA?
6) Tabuya when did you apply to be CANDIDATE? When were you (if at all) interviewed by the SODELPA SELECTION COMMITTEE? Right up to 8 December, and a day before the announcement of candidates, you were insisting that you were not a member of SODELPA. You claimed you were still leader of PDP in talks with SODELPA. But on 9 December Rabuka claimed you had resigned from PDP and have joined SODELPA, with Singh appointed as a VP for SODELPA?
7) Why should there be a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) if you two have resigned from PDP and joined SODELPA. A MOU is a document that expresses mutual accord on an issue between two or more parties. MOUs are generally recognized as binding, even if no legal claim could be based on the rights
7) On what grounds did the PDP Management Board, to use your own statements, grant you authority to sign a MOU with Sitiveni Rabuka? Come off, its like a Board of Trustees granting former Directors the powers to sign off multi-million dollar deals? Who are you two fooling? Or are you two surrounded by FOOLS in PDP and SODELPA?
9) If you two have resigned and joined SODELPA, why the hell should you two be exempt from the rules and regulations of SODELPA Party Constitution?
8) Vijay Singh, you have become a VICE-PRESIDENT of SODELPA, so what is this garbage MOU that you have signed with Rabuka, allegedly at the behest of the PDP Management Board? Have you merged PDP into SODELPA?
10) Have you two informed of your departure to the Supervisor of Elections?
We call on the Election Supervisor to look into the whole shenanigan?
PDP slogan was: REAL CHANGE. Now, you have changed political sides, you have no bloody right, power, or privilege to be signing an MOU with Rabuka.
You have to be treated as any SODELPA member, without any grace or favour
10) Lynda Tabuya, go and ask FLP leader Mahendra Chaudhry about MOUs with Sitiveni Rabuka. This man is the biggest liu muri in Fiji. Only an ignorant fool, devoid of history, will make a 'DEAL WITH THE DEVIL"
Here is what his own biographer John Sharpham in RABUKA OF FIJI, wrote about making a 'DEAL WITH THE DEVIL'. In I992, after holding elections under his racist 1990 Constitution, he fell short of the numbers he required to become Prime Minister. He needed the combined votes of NFP and FLP to deny Jo Kamikamica, Ratu Mara's preferred choice, to become PM. Kamikamica was seen as reliable, safe and moderate. According to Sharpham: 'He [Rabuka] was told that Kamikamica had done a deal with Jai Ram Reddy and the NFP, securing thirty votes, while he was able to find only 26. Rabuka anxious to win, threw caution to the wind and agreed to allow a small group of supporters to negotiate on his behalf with the Labour Party. There was a rapid exchange of correspondence with drafts being altered, before Rabuka agreed to sign a letter committing him to deal with the FLP for their support for his becoming Prime Minister. They demanded of him an immediate process of review and change for the Constitution, reform of the labour decrees, immediate withdrawal of the VAT, and serious attention to the issue of land. He agreed and got FLP's 13 votes to become Prime Minister. He had come back from the brink of defeat, and his victory had been quite breathtaking and cynically pragmatic. It was almost unthinkable that Chaudhry, of all people, would seal a deal with Rabuka and deliver him the prime ministership. When Chaudhry was asked if he had done 'a deal with the devil' hre responded: 'No, there was no deal; the fact is we laid down conditions.' As long as Rabuka met his promises Labour would not vote against him. In fact, Rabuka was a better risk for Labour than the right wing Kamikamica. Chaudhry would never support anybody who had Mara's support...[Chaudhry] was also possibly attrcated to the role of king-maker. As well, he understood the incredible irony of the whole situation [overthrown with Bavadra as his Finance Minister, with Rabuka saying 'Indians will never again rule Fiji], but he was a hardened politician. 'Oh, yes,' he responded when asked, 'we hope we can enjoy that type of irony, which does not happen very often'. Nor was the arrangement to last. Almost immediately, now he had the numbers, Rabuka was backing away from his agreement with the FLP. A spokesman for the new Prime Minister insisted that all he had agreed to do was to discuss the issues that had been raised. There was, he stated, no agreement to do any more than was this. Rabuka had already learned the art of political double speak and was prepared to walk a precarious path to stay in power...As for FLP, he was prepared to go back on his agreement. As one commentator (Brij Lal, later his big fan) noted: 'Rabuka reverted to his old ways, changing his mind or denying the substance of the deals he had made. He refused to review the value added tax, as he had promised, and he dismissed any urgency to review the [racist 1990] constitution. With his own base to safeguard, and his own public support among ordinary nationalist Fijians high, Rabuka was in no hurry to keep his promises." Fijileaks: Liu muried FLP
Lynda Tabuya and Vijay Singh: What are the contents of the MOU? Was it signed before or after you resigned from the PDP? And if you had joined SODELPA after your resignations, what right do you have to bring PDP policies into the SODELPA camp? Either you are SODELPA or PDP. You can't be both? There are a host of other questions, and that is why we are calling on the Supervisor of Elections to step in and conduct an inquiry
Rabuka has announced the first 30 list of SODELPA candidates following the MOU signing between SODELPA and PDP at the party's headquarters in Suva
The list is as follows:
The list is as follows:
1. Adi Narayan 2. George Shiu Raj 3. Pastor Ezekiel Sharma 4. Arvind Singh 5. Anare Jale 6. Viliame Gavoka 7. Ro Kiniviliame Kiliraki 8. Semesa Karavaki 9. Tanya Waqanika 10. Salote Radrodro 11. Berenado Daveta 12. Ropate Ligairi 13. Pio Tabaiwalu 14. Jope Koroisavou 15. Dr Mere Samisoni | 16. Aseri Radrodro 17. Peceli Rinakama 18. Ratu Suliano Matanitobua 19. Mikaele Liawere 20. Meretui Ratunabuabua 21. Simione Drole 22. Peceli Vosanibola 23. Mitieli Bulanauca 24. Mosese Bulitavu 25. Ratu Tevita Niumataiwalu 26. Niko Nawaikula 27. Reverend Jone Kata 28. Ratu Jone Seniloli 29. Dr Antonio Lalabalavu 30. Lynda Tabuya |
As anticipated, Peceli Rinakama, the 2000 convicted coupist with George Speight is now SODELPA candidate. And Simione Drole? Is he the same Drole who, while serving his time on Nukulau Island for his role in the Speight coup, had turned State witness and had testified against other coup accomplices Timoci Silatolu and Jo Nata? Drole had told the Silatolu-Nata TREASON trial that it was Silatolu who gave the final go-ahead for the overthrow of the Mahendra Chaudhry government on 19 May. Drole told the court that the day before the coup they met Silatolu at the Soqosoqo ni Vakavulewa ni Taukei (SVT) party's office in central Suva. Rabuka had led his SVT party into the 1999 general election, only to be trounced at the poll. In 2003, Rinakama alleged that Rabuka's SVT party was behind the 2000 coup, and that it had plotted to overthrow the Chaudhry government even before it took office. And, is Mitieli Bulanauca the same Bulanauca who, in the political upheaval that followed the Speight coup, was appointed to the interim Cabinet formed by Laisenia Qarase as Minister for Lands and Mineral Resources?
Welcome to COUPCOUP Politics, with SODELPA, led by Father of Coups, Sitiveni Rabuka, already having lost the moral high ground to raise the issue of 2006 coup in the 2018 election
Despite Fiji’s great progress, the old forces that once sought to divide us still lurk beneath the surface.
Those are the words of Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama while opening the 19th Attorney General’s Conference at the Intercontinental Hotel in Natadola today.
Bainimarama says our bond, as one nation and one people, must only grow stronger in the face of the threat of the old forces dividing the people of the country.
The Prime Minister says we cannot take even one step backward.
Bainimarama says we cannot slip back into the dark years of ethnic and religious division and weak institutions.
He also says that we must condemn — powerfully and openly – any who seek to drag us back to that destructive, backward and personalised way of thinking.
Bainimarama says the constitution establishes our common national identity, as equals, as Fijians.
He says as a result, we stand together today, more united than at any other time in our history. FijiVillage News, 8 December 2017
Those are the words of Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama while opening the 19th Attorney General’s Conference at the Intercontinental Hotel in Natadola today.
Bainimarama says our bond, as one nation and one people, must only grow stronger in the face of the threat of the old forces dividing the people of the country.
The Prime Minister says we cannot take even one step backward.
Bainimarama says we cannot slip back into the dark years of ethnic and religious division and weak institutions.
He also says that we must condemn — powerfully and openly – any who seek to drag us back to that destructive, backward and personalised way of thinking.
Bainimarama says the constitution establishes our common national identity, as equals, as Fijians.
He says as a result, we stand together today, more united than at any other time in our history. FijiVillage News, 8 December 2017