Chiefs back Rabuka

ByWainikiti Waqa

FIJI’S powerful Great Council of Chiefs (GCG) met in Suva for two days last month and later announced its unwavering support for the ruling Soqosoqo Vakavulewa ni Taukei and its leader, Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka. The emergency chiefs’ meet ing was called following the country’s most recent political crisis which saw the defeat of government’s 1994 budget and the announcement by the prime minister that parliament would be dissolved and a snap election to be held late next month.

The budget defeat was made possible by seven dissenting members of govern ment who did not vote for the budget, fueling speculations of division among the ranks and more so, the fragmen tation of the indigenous Fijians. In an appropriate address to open the chiefs meeting, acting president and former prime minister Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara called for unity among the

indigenous Fijians.

Mara called on the chiefs to be wary of those they chose as candidates for the chiefs-sponsored SVT party in the snap election. He said the chiefs should choose candidates with integrity, vision, force of character and trust worthiness, in the face of uncertainty and confusion brought about by the defeat of the budget.

Ratu Mara, who was Fiji’s PM for the past 22 years (17 years as an elected leader and five as head of the interim government), said unity among SVT parliamentarians was paramount if Fijian interests was to be pursued with vigour. “I regarded the defeat of the government budget Bill as a crisis situation,” Rabuka later told the 56 members of the GCG. “This is not only because it is a major legislation so that a vote against it is in effect, a vote of no-confidence in the government — but also because the budget Bill was

defeated with the help of the dissenting group from within the governing SVT/ General Voters Party coalition it is this which made it all the more serious.”

Rabuka told the chiefs that the vote against the budget by the dissidents was more a personal vote against him than anything else. “Was their personal hatred for me so deep that they were prepared to sacrifice their duty and obligation of loyalty to the SVT and GVP and to the Fijian and Rotuman communities as a whole and to hand over effective control of the national government of this country to the 26 Indian members of the Opposition?”

Rabuka presented a book size ac count of what had happened in parlia ment. At the end of their deliberations, the chiefs gave Rabuka their blessings to amend the SVT constitution, en abling the party to have a clearer agenda. Under the present consti tution, SVT cannot discipline any of the seven dissident parliamentarians who did not vote for the budget.

The seven dissidents, who have since been expelled by the SVT management board, have threatened to take SVT to court on the issue. Rabuka clarified in a press conference after the meeting that the seven could stand again as SVT candidates but it would be up to their constitutency councils.

Rabuka said names proposed by the councils would have to be endorsed by a party selection panel, as the former practice which saw councils endorsing their own candidates has dramatically failed to hold in one piece the much required party unity.

He later predicted a comfortable majority for the SVT which should see him back in Fiji’s highest political office. Mara is expected to dissolve parliament on the 19th of this month with the election to be held within 37 days. □