Opposition
pp. 13-14 · Read in the full issue
'Awake and unite/says Fiji Opposition
From Vijendra Kumar,
in Lautoka Fiji’s Opposition party, the National Federation Party, has hoisted up its tattered banner to rally the faithful—and those with wavering hearts—with a new slogan “Awake and Unite”.
The party, long plagued by inter nal squabbles, at best provided a weak opposition to the ruling Alli ance Party. Added to this was its leaders’ frustration when their amendments to government bills, however well motivated, were de feated by the hefty Alliance majority in the House of Representatives. The party’s more radical members like Mr Karam Ramrakha, the party Whip, and Mrs Irene Jai Narayan, the shadow minister of education, have long been exerting pressure on the leader of the Opposition, Mr Siddiq Koya, to adopt a more mili tant stance.
It seems the leftists have won their argument.
Ever since Mr Koya became the party leader after the death of the founder-leader, Mr A. D. Patel, five years ago, he has advocated a moder ate stand and has been able to keep the leftists in check. Mr Koya en joyed an unusually cordial relation ship with the Prime Minister, Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara. He believed that with dialogue and co-operation, he could help achieve his party’s goals.
Two things have forced Mr Koya to revise his thinking.
One of his trusted lieutenants, Mr Vijay Parmanandam, defected to the Alliance, thus reducing NFP’s num bers to 18 seats in the 52-member House. Although this hurt Mr Koya in a much more personal way than one can imagine, he has desisted from criticising the defector in pub lic. Not so his colleagues. They launched a bitter tirade against Mr Parmanandam and used his defection as a lever to force Mr Koya to re assess his leadership.
The other major factor has been the government’s wishy-washy policy on land utilisation. The Opposition, which draws the bulk of its support from Indian farmers, had been hop ing that the government would use its strength to influence the Native Lands Trust Board, which adminis ters Fijian-owned land, to give long
term agricultural leases to its tenant farmers.
The Opposition was stunned when the government itself adopted a hard line policy on Crown land. When it took over land formerly owned by the Colonial Sugar Refining Com pany, the government at first agreed to consider an Opposition suggestion to sell the freeholds to tenant farmers. But it changed its mind and decided to give 10-year leases instead.
That ended the honeymoon be tween the Alliance Government and the National Federation Party Opposition. Mr Koya and his col leagues went back to the farmers with the grim message of changed battle plans.
The Opposition leader recently summed up the policy shift in a single sentence: “The era of co operation and dialogue is over. Now it’s going to be confrontation”.
Mr Koya repeated this at a recent meeting of party supporters in a different language. He said if the Alliance failed to solve the land problem and curb inflation (now running at 14 per cent), he would create such an upheaval in the coun try “that none can imagine its scope”.
“We’ll close down Fiji altogether”, he told the enthusiastic crowd.
Fresh after its resounding victory in a recent by-election, the NFP thinks it is ready to take the bull by the horns.
The NFP leaders have been drop ping hints that unless the government seriously grapples with its problems, they will order the Indian cane farmers not to plant any cane next year. With sugar being Fiji’s biggest export commodity (1973 sales to talled more than $34 million), this could cripple the national economy, especially at a time when the sugar market is booming.