Fijileaks
  • Home
  • Archive Home
  • In-depth Analysis
    • BOI Report into George Speight and others beatings
  • Documents
  • Opinion
  • CRC Submissions
  • Features
  • Archive

VENOMOUS FANGS OUT! Frank Bainimarama on Sitiveni Rabuka: ‘A snake will always be a snake, no matter how many times the snake sheds its skin’. Rabuka to Bainimarama: 'Well, only a snake will know that.'

7/7/2016

12 Comments

 

Fijileaks: We are not cheerleaders of either of the two coupists but Bainimarama was absolutely right to dismiss SODELPA's call for a debate between himself and Rabuka. After all, Rabuka lost the 1999 election whereas Bainimarama was declared winner of the 2014 general election. Politically, Rabuka ruled Fiji between 1987 and 1999 under the RACIST 1990 Constitution.  He, therefore, lacks experience to debate politics!

Picture

"The SVT was politically opportunistic and in order to make up the expected loss of seats to rival Fijian parties, it had gone into coalition with the NFP, believing that the NFP was the party of the Indo-Fijians. The NFP, on the other hand, had taken for granted that the SVT represented the Fijian voters. The confidence and cockiness of the two coalition partners can be seen from their announcement regarding political leadership. If the SVT-NFP Coalition had come to power, Rabuka was to become prime minister and Reddy was supposed to be his deputy prime minister (i.e. a Fijian Prime Minister and an Indo-Fijian Deputy Prime Minister). It is unfair and despicable for both the SVT and NFP leaders to accuse the Indo-Fijian community of electoral betrayal." - VICTOR LAL, Fiji's Daily Post, 2001

Picture

From Fiji's Daily Post archive, 2001,
By VICTOR LAL:
The 1997 Constitution: Beauty and the Beast and 1999 General Election

"The former army commander [Rabuka] had taken his troops into the electoral battle without any major preparation and was comprehensively beaten at the polls. As they say in military language, his electoral troops were called upon to take on the political enemy on empty stomachs."

Picture
Picture
PictureBy VICTOR LAL
EXCERPT: At this stage, we will not go into depth in analysing the 1999 elections. We will be writing about it in later columns. All we will say at this stage is that the AV [electoral system] did not achieve its objective in uniting the races. It also worked against the SVT. However, the Fiji Labour Party would still have won a general election under any system given the mood and temper of the electorate in May 1999, and the bitter tribal and provincial rivalries in the Fijian political camps.

Commenting on the election results, Mahendra Chaudhry claimed that the FLP's victory was the result of the people's 'frustration' at problems of unemployment, poverty, crime, failure of government services and income disparity between the rich and the poor. An editorial in The Fiji Times observed that the FLP won because of its multicultural image and 'its image as a caring, humane party that stays close to the grassroots people'.

The SVT, on the other hand, as the result of competition from rival indigenous Fijian parties also lost ground with five Ministers losing their seats. It won eight compared to 31 seats in 1994. In contrast to the Indo-Fijian seats, the contest for votes in the Fijian communal seats was more even. The other indigenous Fijian parties, FAP, PANU, VLV and the extremist NVTLP won at the expense of SVT, 11, four, three and one seats respectively. In a number of cases (and in one where an independent won) the new 'alternate vote' system contributed to the loss of SVT seats. There have been calls to return to the old system. The SVT also became a victim of 'disunity among chiefs who set up and supported new Fijian political parties'.

Many Fijians saw the election results as a repeat of 1987. This was the view of Apisai Tora, secretary-general of PANU and Bau Chief Adi Litia Cakobau of SVT, who also observed that the Fijian votes were split and many of the chiefs lost their seats because the people wanted a change. The Nationalists, in a meeting after the elections, made a 'blood pledge' to overthrow the Chaudhry government and constitution and to introduce a Fijianisation policy.

The Impact of Coalitions: Myth and Reality

A traditional conception of coalition politics might suggest that political parties compete independently during the election campaign to maximise their potential and engage in coalition bargaining only once the distribution of seats are known. But of course in reality electoral competition and coalition bargaining are not so neatly sequential. After all, one matter that voters are likely to be interested in during the campaign is the identity of the new government to be formed. Most parties want to appear relevant to the business of forming a government in order to attract floating voters. They thus have incentives to suggest that they are well positioned to join a winning coalition. In many countries parties do this either by forming electoral coalitions or at least by signalling with whom they will (and perhaps with whom they will not) try to form a government once the dust has settled and the explicit post-election bargaining begins.

As already noted, the SVT/NFP/UGP was the first to declare itself as a coalition. In March 1999 the FAP/PANU/FLP led by Adi Kuini, Tora, and Chaudhry, announced their coalition.

Much has been made of the fact that the SVT lost the election because it went into Coalition with the NFP. The same has been said of the defeat of the NFP. The truth is that the SVT lost because the Fijian voters (62 per cent) took their votes to the other Fijian parties. The SVT only got 38 per cent of the Fijian votes. As for the NFP, it is preposterous for the NFP and its politicians to argue that the Indo-Fijians bloc voted for the FLP because they had not forgiven Rabuka and the violence and brutality his two coups had unleashed on them. It might be partly true. However, the Indo-Fijian votes went to the FLP because for the first time the Indo-Fijian community came to its senses that it could not be taken for a ride by the NFP and its leaders like they had done with their lives since 1969. A new generation of Indo-Fijian voters had seen nothing but a slow and steady strangulation of their economic, educational, and political rights by supporting the NFP. The sins of their fathers continued to be visited on their sons as long as they remained under the false protection of the NFP.

It was the Peoples Coalition which should have been punished at the polls. For the spectre of Apisai Tora and his PANU in coalition with Chaudhry was a far greater evil in the minds of the Indo-Fijian voters than the moderate Reddy and the supposedly born-again Methodist lay preacher Rabuka. Tora evokes far greater fear in the Indo-Fijian community with his past history of racial violence and repeated calls for the expulsion of Indo-Fijians than Rabuka, who had come across before the elections as a committed multi-racialist.

The Indo-Fijians were acutely aware that Tora had played a leading role in ousting Chaudhry, Reddy, and Bavadra from power in 1987. As we have already demonstrated, the Indo-Fijian voters were more concerned with daily bread and butter issues than the achievements of Reddy and Rabuka giving them a new Constitution. Many Indo-Fijian voters were also acutely aware that the SVT and Rabuka had buckled under international pressure to make changes to the 1990 Constitution. There was no serious change of heart on the part of Rabuka or the SVT as recent events and constitutional developments have once again confirmed.

The SVT was politically opportunistic and in order to make up the expected loss of seats to rival Fijian parties, it had gone into coalition with the NFP, believing that the NFP was the party of the Indo-Fijians. The NFP, on the other hand, had taken for granted that the SVT represented the Fijian voters. The confidence and cockiness of the two coalition partners can be seen from their announcement regarding political leadership. If the SVT-NFP Coalition had come to power, Rabuka was to become prime minister and Reddy was supposed to be his deputy prime minister (i.e. a Fijian Prime Minister and an Indo-Fijian Deputy Prime Minister). It is unfair and despicable for both the SVT and NFP leaders to accuse the Indo-Fijian community of electoral betrayal. It is curious to read that the Indo-Fijians are described as ‘political traitors’ while the non-SVT Fijians are being chided for exercising their democratic rights by casting their votes for other Fijian political parties.

As we have already shown, the SVT and Rabuka came to power in the 1994 elections because of the bloc votes of the military, the Church, and rural Fijian voters who were beneficiaries of the skewed 1990 Constitution in favour of rural Fijian voters over the urban Fijian voters. The SVT must be also mentally devoid of historical memory.

It was not their arch rival, a former political saviour and current bogeyman-Mahendra Chaudhry-but their new-found coalition angel Jai Ram Reddy and the NFP which had thrown in their political support for Kamikamica against Rabuka in the 1992 leadership crisis. Maybe, the Fijian voters had a greater retentive memory of Reddy’s part in the leadership contest, which they presumably did, than the SVT and Rabuka. Maybe, they could not trust Reddy in a future government with Rabuka. The SVT must ask itself: Why did it make an electoral pact with the political ‘devils’ in the NFP who had no confidence in their leader Rabuka’s leadership of the nation?.

In passing, we would like to also point out that it is grossly insulting and unfair to blame the Indo-Fijian community for exercising their democratic right to cast their votes for the FLP. Why no call has been made to unite the Indo-Fijians through a new constitution similar to that now being made by the Interim Government, SVT, and the Great Council of Chiefs. Why should and must the Fijians be a united race and the Indo-Fijians a divided race? As we will show one of these days, the Indo-Fijians have always been prepared to embrace multi-racialism, and it was for this reason that the Alliance Party was able to stay in power for too long.

Meanwhile, the 1997 Constitution was taken for granted by the SVT/NFP Coalition as a right of passage to power. Rabuka’s biographer, John Sharpham recounts Rabuka’s optimism as his grip on the country was sliding by the hour: ‘Monday revealed how difficult it was going to be, for late on Monday it was clear that the election was turning into a rout. Reddy and the NFP were being trounced everywhere and by huge margins. Even key NFP candidates who had been tipped to enter Rabuka’s Cabinet, like Wadan Narsey, the young academic turned politician, were comprehensively beaten. Reddy, who had chosen, like Rabuka to run in an open seat, to prove the principle of multiracial support, was beaten handily. Tired, dispirited and unwell, he was ready to retire from politics forever and return to his successful law practice. The NFP lost all nineteen seats of the Indian communal seats to Labour. The eleven Open seats that Rabuka had given the NFP as part of the Coalition arrangement were also in jeopardy. The NFP had, effectively been destroyed by Chaudhry and the Labour Party, and by their commitment to the multiparty, multiracial Constitution. It was not just the NFP that was being mauled. The SVT was also in deep trouble. Apart from a few seats in the north and Jim Ah Koy’s win in Kadavu, there was little to show for all the hard work. Preferential voting, the AV system, was working against the SVT. Unless a candidate won on the first count, gaining 50 per cent plus one vote, the seat count then went to preferences. All their opposition parties had agreed to place their preferences against the SVT. It was virtually impossible for the SVT candidate to win if the vote went to preferences. The division among the Fijians, their fragmentation into eleven different parties, was now counting against the party that had been created to unite them.’

Rabuka flew into Suva and called a two-hour meeting with Ratu Inoke Kubuabola and Jim Ah Koy. To quote Sharpham: ‘The mood in the Prime Minister’s office area was a gloomy one. Workmen moved up and down the hall outside making drastic changes to the rooms on the fourth floor. These refurbishments had been planned for the incoming government, expected to be led by Rabuka. A different Cabinet and a new prime Minister would be using these improved facilities. Amidst the gloom of his staff and the noise of the builders Rabuka was upbeat. He talked over the options for the future with Ah Koy and Kubuabola. From time to time, his Cabinet secretary joined them to offer advice about the timing of resigning and conceding. At this stage Rabuka still believed the SVT and the UGP might win twenty seats and so be offered a Cabinet seat. Should they accept and support the multi-party approach? The longer they talked, the clearer the news became that the Labour Party would win a strong mandate. Ah Koy was, from the beginning, all for going into opposition. Eventually the others agreed, but Rabuka wanted to wait another day, just to see the results. He held out no hopes for any change, but the final vote count needed to be announced formally to make the situation absolutely clear.’

The election results recorded a resounding victory for the Peoples Coalition. Rabuka insisted that the Constitution had been the correct issue on which to fight the election. His SVT had managed to win only eight seats in a new Parliament. The man responsible for this humiliation was no other than Mahendra Pal Chaudhry who had just won his own seat in Ba West. The westerly wind of change was blowing towards the south - the capital Suva- for the Peoples Coalition to occupy the newly furbished office of the Prime Minister. Chaudhry was a strong contender for the most coveted post. ‘I have never lost an election’, Rabuka told his supporters, ‘I am an army man and I have learned you must always be prepared for defeat’. The truth of the matter was Chaudhry and the Fiji Labour Party had regained what Rabuka had stolen from them at the point of a gun in 1987. His nemesis was a man called Chaudhry.

As Sharpham notes, ‘The final results of the election showed the devastation that the hurricane called Chaudhry, had caused to Rabuka’s Coalition. The SVT held just eight seats, enough to be invited to hold a Cabinet seat, but which Rabuka had rejected. The NFP had not won a single seat, while the UGP had done its part and won two. Chaudhry and the Fiji Labour Party had had a magnificent victory winning a mandate in their own right with 37 seats. The FAP had won ten seats, two more than the SVT, giving them a right to say they spoke for the Fijians, and PANU had own four. The Peoples Coalition had an overwhelming hold on the House of Representatives with 51 of the 71 seats. Rabuka, for his part, believed Chaudhry and his supporters had acted against the spirit of the new Constitution. He was dismayed that race was still so dominant a political factor, especially among the Indo-Fijians’.

As we have already stated, Rabuka’s statement was a perversity of truth and reality. The Indo-Fijians could no longer be taken for a ride by the NFP, especially the new breed of Indo-Fijian voters. The enemy, in fact, was from within the Fijian community. They were no longer going to be fooled by the SVT, especially over 60 per cent of the Fijian voters. They had voted en bloc for other Fijian parties. Race had been subsumed in the politics of coalition. And only one of the two Coalitions was bound to emerge as a political winner.

In this instance, it was the Chaudhry led Peoples Coalition. The former army commander had taken his troops into the electoral battle without any major preparation and was comprehensively beaten at the polls. As they say in military language, his electoral troops were called upon to take on the political enemy on empty stomachs.

In the next column, we will show how the Fijians inside the Coalition shamelessly tried to take advantage of the provisions for power sharing in the 1997 Constitution as they raced for the Prime Minister, fatally damaging Mahendra Chaudhry in the process. The Fijian nationalists and the SVT had no opportunity to directly invoke the ‘Race Card’ in the appointment of a new Prime Minister because they were not a part of the winning Coalition. Adi Kuini Speed and Apisai Tora however sanctioned the race card in the eyes of grassroots Fijians throughout Fiji by trying to put forward a Prime Minister of Fijian origin.

Chaudhry’s political world was thus bound to fall apart, and only Time was the silent spectator to tell when, how, and by whom in the murky world of Fijian tribal politics.

Picture
Picture
Picture

Rabuka should UNMASK these hooded soldiers he took to Parliament!

Picture
12 Comments
Pita
7/7/2016 01:07:28 am

The snake kills by squeezing very slowly. Both Bainimarama and Rabuka are snakes. One slowly kills the indigenous Fijian spirit in order to build a new nation. Rabuka kills the nation for himself first followed by his CBM cronies and the indigenous Fijians last. But method is more important than strength when dealing with snakes. By dropping golden beads near a snake a crow managed to have a passer by kill the snake (Henry Wordsworth Longfellow)


Reply
Peter
7/7/2016 02:21:57 am

Fang vs fang, my money is on Rabuka. He will be a breath of fresh air for the right thinking "we the people of Fiji".
Go Rabuka go!!!
Good things will happen when the current nepotism is gotten rid off.
Go Rabuka go!!!!

Reply
Peter ke Baap
7/7/2016 09:10:33 am

Go Rabuka go ...

Go to Hell where you belong ......

Reply
sam
7/7/2016 08:56:24 am

What the hell you talking about Peter, this is the same damn SL Rabuka who had started the process of of the coups, racism by over throwing the multiracial coalition NFP/FLP govt, nepotism by removing the govt. machinery like Commissioner of Police PU Raman and appointing his chosen military personnel to all high ranking posts in Fiji including DOs', commissioners, diplomats, interim ministers, etc.

Even to this day he is still silent on who were the culprits really behind the 1987 coup(for sure he wasn't alone- doesn't matter what the snake says).

We can never trust him, it is a disgrace that he is back in Fijian politics of non-racial voting( 1 person=1vote) when he couldn't even win under 1997 racial constitution which guaranteed supremacy for i-taukei.

Soldepha will be ruined to ashes under Rabuka like he had ruined SVT in 1999.

It amazes me to see that Soldelpa MGT are so dumb, deaf and blinded by Rabuka's likes of I-taukei nationalists just as they were with SVT was in 1999.

2018 election will be a landslide for FFP if Rabuka is the leader of Soldepha. God help them.

Reply
Mahen
7/7/2016 09:30:13 am

Rabuka let the cat out of the bag when he said he wont accuse Rt Mara of wanting the coup as Rt Mara was not here to defend himself!!! Not rocket science to read between the lines.
WELL IF RT MARA WAS NOT INVOLVED, RABUKA WOULD HAVE SAID A BLUNT "NO" and no one needs to defend himself for things he is not part of!

Reply
Stee
7/7/2016 09:32:04 am

Sam your right it will be a landslide victory for FFP come 2018, SODELPA have been hitting the current government with the 2006 coup issue every opportunity they've had and then they go ahead and appoint someone who brought this coup culture onto our country... If I were FF I would stay quite and let him run the party to the ground !

Reply
King Rat
7/7/2016 10:15:33 am

Agree with you Stee.

Fiji First does not have to do anything, not even comment on Rambo's appointment as head of the 'So Help Me God' Party.

I read in yesterday's letter to the Fiji Sun, a letter from one Timoci Gaunavinaka, who said that when "Rabuka falls, SODELPA will fall"

Those who appointed Rambo to that position were unable to think strategically. They have set themselves up for crash to oblivion - led by bad advice from a wannabe chief from Verata, Adi Litia - she set up a management structure for SODELPA that is both confusing and politically unworkable. And bush chiefs like the Tui Cakau, supported her!

Just shows you the calibre of those at the helm of the 'So Help Me God' Party.

By appointing Rambo as their leader, they have shown how bankrupt they are!

Reply
Semi Kuboutawa
8/7/2016 12:32:05 am

May be unconventional for Political Party Leaders to be non-sitting Members of Parliament. However, precedents have proved success as in the case of a conservative party leader in Queensland Parliament, Australia in 2011. Subsequent elections elevated the leader to overwhelming victory as Qld Premier! SLR may just achieve that should the SODELPA crews work more rigorously on unity.
Given the threat of mutiny as some deduce in the MV SODELPA, may be best for SLR to form his own CBM party fielding Nationwide candidates in election 2018? He would than spend less time looking over his shoulders for genuine and faithful support and guarantee peace of mind at his old age …just saying.

Reply
Tomasi
11/7/2016 02:04:40 am

If the snake comment by Voreqe is true, then he must be feeling really threatened in a very real way. for a person like him to use the snake comparison for a fellow soldier, that speaks volumes.

What does he really mean by that "snake" Was he caught by surprise by Rabuka's move? Did they have an agreement, or understanding? Was Voreqe caught by Rabuka's counter move? Was it an ambush?

These are interesting days folks. Its great to be alive and well and be free. But are our current and aspiring rulers sleeping well? Or are they having dreams or nightmares about pythons, cobras, anacondas, and other species of the snake family?

Interesting times indeed. Given the impending Olympic games, the expected Gold Medals for some of our sports ambassadors. Then there are echoes of another kind. What will transpire on our political landscape soon. Interesting times indeed.

Reply
splashViti
11/7/2016 12:15:31 pm

While we're still pondering over the PM's choice of word "snake" to describe SLR, I thought it was rather interesting that the very next day after FL posted this thread, I actually heard the gospel that was being read out in church that Jesus had instructed his twelve disciples that he was sending them out like "sheep among wolves", so therefore, they must be "cunning as snakes and yet innocent as doves" (Matthew 10:16-23). A mere coincidence?

I'm taught that "cunning as snakes" refers to "prudence or sagacity - which evaluates the situation and discerns the good from evil...". I also recall one of the good bloggers here suggesting along similar lines the need to evaluate situations first before commenting.

On the quality of being "innocent as doves" derived from that same reading, I understand that to refer to the state of being "transparent and sincere" in working for the common good. So will leave that to you guys to work that one out.

Reply
On-Song
12/7/2016 04:17:01 am

That is the first sign of slow squeeze that the PM is feeling. All was plain sailing until Rabuka (the 'snake') emerged from the woodworks and Bai knows very well that the familiar playground is no longer safe to tread on at will; lest he gets bitten. Na Marama was never given the respect she deserved as SODELPA leader by some of those elected into Opposition, nor by many in FFP leading Govt. Now that has changed and we have Rabuka who has been through it all calling the shots as he sees fit and the FFP better take heed of the racial comments made in Parliament for they represent the voices of many yet unknown, but very well do exist. Take into consideration the appointment of the many Muslims into top positions in corporate bodies, the internal promotions orchestrated by No-Shynasty Voss in Fiji Airways and this Govt. is fast burying itself in the no-shame zone........the hardwood industry?..ask Bai/Kai

Reply
King Rat
12/7/2016 10:18:31 am

"Slow squeeze?" The appointment of 'many muslims'?

You are being paranoid, hysterical and divisive like your dickhead MP, Isoa Tikoca, who was always loyal like a dog to Rabuka in 1987 and that's how he was promoted beyond his competence.

This guy Tikoca represents the etho-nationalist element within SODELPA who have 'couped' the GMB RTD to bring back Rabuka. They deserve to be consigned to the dutbin of history.

I think we should all back the RTD in her pursuit of "PLAN B" which will be the only sensible alternative to the current hiatus.

Reply

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Contact
    ​[email protected]
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture