in Fiji general election

Overwhelming win for Alliance in Fiji general election

From ROBERT KEITH-REID in Suva

Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara’s Alliance Party won a general elec tion victory on September 24 by a hefty margin that was as unexpected as its defeat in an election last April.

It swept up 36 of the 52 seats in the House of Representatives, several more than it had hoped for, and two more than it had ever held before.

Its mainly Indian-supported op ponent, the National Federation Party, had its parliamentary power slashed from the 26 seats it won in the April election to a mere 15. Sen sation of the election was a crushing personal defeat of Muslim lawyer, Siddiq Koya, who lost his Lautoka Indian communal seat.

Koya, who had led the NFP since 1969, went down to 40-year-old Jai Ram Reddy, a leader of a.faction of the NFP that has been trying to destroy Koya politically for over a year. It was a bitter and often dirty fight between Koya’s “dove” faction and the “flower” faction of the NFP that was chiefly responsible for the Alliance’s dramatic bounce back to power. But for the NFP’s troubles the Alliance would have undoub tedly had to make do with 27 or 28 seats which would have been an un comfortably slim majority to rule with.

After winning in April the NFP, holding half the seats in Parliament and racked by internal leadership quarrels, was unable to form a government, so the Governor- General, Ratu Sir George Cakobau, reappointed the Alliance as a minority administration. Ratu Sir Kamisese’s government resigned in June after it failed to get a vote of confidence for which it asked the new parliament.

In the campaign leading up to the election the NFP ripped itself apart as rival candidates spat at each other. It contested 35 seats, but in 24 constituencies NFP candidates of both factions fought each other as well as the Alliance.

As a result the Indian vote on which the NFP counts for most of its support, was split and the Alliance picked up at least seven and possibly nine seats that would have otherwise

gone to the NFP. Only three of Koya’s faction, which was symbolis ed on ballot papers by a dove, won seats. The other faction, symbolised by a hibiscus flower won 12. Two of Koya’s arch foes, the party’s presi dent Mrs Irene Jai Narayan and the general secretary Karam Ramrakha, won seats.

The anti-Indian Fijian Nationalist Party which in the April election was largely responsible for the Alliance s defeat by attracting an unexpectedly big proportion of the rqian vote from it, did not do so well this time Six months of campaigning counter-action by the Fijian Associ ation, the Fijian arm of the Fijian- E uro pean- Ch i nese - Indian sup ported Alliance, saw the Nationalist share * he Fijian vote cut from about 11 % to 8%.

Its leader, Sakiasi Butadroka who in August was gaoled for six months after being convicted of inciting race hatred in a speech he made

after the April election, lost his seat to the Alliance. It was the only seat h ‘ S P art y WOn in the P revi °U s elec tion.

While some jubilant Alliance sup porters claimed that the Nationalists were heading for extinction as a po litical force, more realistic obser vers pointed out that the 16 000 votes won by the Nationalists in the September election indicated that it was by no means a spent force, Ratu <ji r Kamisese, one of five Alliance candidates returned unop posed, admitted that the best he had hoped for was 33 seats, and that the 36 seat win had “overwhelmed” him. He was expected to name his new cabinet on September 27 Apart from the 15 NFP survivors the Alliance has an opposition also comprising a lone independent Ratu Osea Gavidi, who narrowly held the Fijian communal seat he took from the Alliance in April Once again the Alliance failed to w in any of Parliament’s 12 Indian communal seats, which stayed in the hands of the NFP.

Election statistics showed that In dian support for the government

Success for the Fiji Alliance - and Prime Minister Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara makes a triumphant toast after hearing the news. Photo: Fiji Times