Defection is windfall profit

The most surprising development in Fiji’s pre election horse trading was the defection of former deputy opposition leader, Mrs Irene Jai Narayan to the ruling Alliance party.

Mrs Narayan, a 54-year-old parliamentarian who has consistently held her Indian communal seat in Suva with a seemingly unassailable majority, had previously been the most vocal and articulate critic of the Alliance government.

And although her defection took many people by surprise, it appears to have been the only political avenue left open to her.

Her drift away from the NFP began in 1985 when Mr Koya, after regaining the party’s leadership from Mr Reddy, withdrew from her the facilities of the opposition office in Suva’s government buildings.

Mi's Narayan and Mr Koya have never seen eye to eye since she challenged him for the NFF leadership and lost by a solitary vote.

After shutting her out of the opposition office, Mr Koya, in a July 1985 shadow cabinet reshuffle, removed her from the deputy leader’s chair. He offered her the education portfolio which he must have known she would reject.

Later she announced that she could no longer support the party leader and was withdrawing her support for the NFF. Her formal resignation was finally submitted the following December when she styled herself an indepen dent MP. After a brief fling with the Labour Party, it was mutually agreed that there was insufficient consensus for a lasting partnership.

Mrs Narayan a powerful, ambitious and determined character may have been too much of a risk for the then infant Labour Party which was trying to establish its own identity out of the NFP shadow.

For her part, Mrs Narayan couldn’t be seen to be playing second fiddle for too long.

Her options: Time was running out with an election looming. To run as an independent is political suicide in Fiji even for an MP of Mrs Narayan’s stature. She had burned all bridges to the NFP. That left the Alliance who, as chance would have it, were at the time desperate

to take on board an Indian politican of Mrs Narayan’s calibre and following.

The prime minister himself was very keen to have an effective Indian voice in the party. Her changed allegiance represents a huge windfall profit for the Alliance because of her massive personal following.

However, neither she or her new party are counting on that personal support. And rather than risk a communal seat, Mrs Narayan will contest a national marginal seat in an effort to secure it for the Alliance.

Ratu Mara was reported to be delighted to have her in the Alliance line-up and Mrs Narayan is assured of a cabinet portfolio should the Alliance Party form the next government. The former high school teacher is tipped for either education or health.

But while she has been welcomed by the Alliance hierarchy, there have been the inevitable grumbles especially from the Indian wing of the party who fear she will eclipse any influence they may have with the party leader. And it seems likely that Mrs Narayan will indeed become a close adviser to Ratu Mara on Indian affairs.

Other members have been critical of the manner in which she was accepted by the party directly without first joining the Indian Alliance. But with Ratu Mara’s personal support for her membership, their complaints will achieve little.

Mrs Narayan, meanwhile, has wasted no time in turning her previous denigration of the Alliance into outright support. She said the Alliance was the only party to have stood the test of time and predicted many more years of Alliance government.

She told the Alliance delegates conference she was “happy to be in this happy household.” However, political observers in Suva noted some difficulty in adapting to her unaccustomed role of backing rather than attacking the government line.

At a meeting of the Young Alliance, the party’s youth wing, she was seen to falter when reading from notes an unheard of performance from a lady who has been described as a fearless, able and forceful debater ready to take on any issue without prepared text.

But there is no doubt that she will make a significant contribution to the Alliance campaign.