Grand Coalition For Fiji - Criticisms

Criticisms

Not all members of all participating parties were completely happy with the coalition. Ema Druavesi, general secretary of the SVT, denied that her party had signed the Memorandum of Agreement establishing the coalition, saying that a party meeting on 13 August would finalize a decision. The Conservative Alliance also appeared to be divided at the top level. It transpired on 3 August that the party president, Ratu Tanoa Cakobau (also known as Ratu Tanoa Visawaqa), had attended the coalition gathering and signed the agreement without informing his colleagues, incurring the ire of the party's now defunct general secretary, Ropate Sivo, who said that the president was not authorized by the party's constitution to negotiate on behalf of the party without informing its members. But his protest was to prove futile when the executives voted Sivo out for insubordination within the party ranks. The Fiji Village news service reported the next day, as a meeting to discuss the dispute was getting underway, that Sivo had told Cakobau that he had done nothing for the party and could "walk out" any time he chose. The CAMV President maintained, however, that the party's six-member parliamentary caucus and the executives were behind him, and the Fijivillage news service reported on 9 August that plans were underway to remove Sivo from his position. Cakobau expected Sivo's predecessor, Ratu Josefa Dimuri, to be reappointed in his place. Sivo, however, countered that he had no intention of resigning and said that he could be removed only if the party considered him unfit for the position. This was to eventuate soon after.

Other parties criticized the developments. National Alliance Party leader Ratu Epeli Ganilau said that in agreeing to the all-indigenous coalition, the ruling SDL had demonstrated that its purported commitment to multiracialism was meaningless. On 14 August, he went further, declaring that the initiative was nothing more than a jostle to retain power. Opposition Leader Mahendra Chaudhry said that the grouping of parties on ethnic lines would further divide the nation, and accused Prime Minister Qarase of using fear tactics to scare indigenous Fijians into supporting indigenous parties, lest Indo-Fijians take over the country. National Federation Party General Secretary Pramod Rae considered that internal differences in the coalition would cause it to be short-lived.

Despite his role in the formation of the coalition, former Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka expressed doubts about its workability on 27 December. Public feuding among its members threatened to derail the project, he warned. The recent attack on the 1997 Constitution by Nationalist Vanua Tako Lavo Party leader Iliesa Duvuloco had upset him, he said.

The coalition was criticized on 17 February 2006 by Ratu Epeli Ganilau, President of the National Alliance Party (NAPF), who accused Coalition spokesman Tomasi Vakatora of racism for saying that indigenous Fijians could not be treated equally with other races. Ganilau called for an investigation into whether Vakatora had breached the Constitution or any other laws. Even the existence of an ethnic coalition was questionable, he considered. "For the Prime Minister and Mr Vakatora to be openly advertising the grouping of Fijian political parties is again an action which threatens harmonious racial relations because it encourages polarisation of racial groups and tension amongst them," Ganilau said.