Grand Coalition For Fiji - The 2006 Election

The 2006 Election

The Grand Coalition, renamed the Grand Coalition for Fiji, was launched publicly on 10 February 2006. University of the South Pacific (USP) Vice-Chancellor Anthony Tarr was invited as a guest speaker, a move criticized by the opposition Fiji Labour Party (FLP). FLP President Jokapeci Koroi told Fiji Village on 7 March that the coalition launch was a political move, not an academic one, and that it was out of order for an academic, especially an expatriate one, to be seen to be taking sides in the election. If anyone, the head of a regional university should be siding with politicians who stood for "liberal and enlightened policies," she said, rather than with a group that promoted racism. Tarr defended his decision to attend the launch, saying that there was no truth to the insinuation that he endorsed racism.

SVT General Secretary Ema Druavesi was quoted in Fiji Village on 10 March as saying that the coalition was uniting indigenous Fijians for the purpose of being able to work with others, and that the group needed an outsider to show them the way forward.

The coalition largely disintegrated before the election. The withdrawal of the PNP and the disbanding of the CAMV reduced its membership to three parties; of these, the SVT contested only one constituency out of 71, and the NVTLP a few more. During the campaign, the coalition was barely mentioned, if at all. When the results were tallied, the SDL had won 36 seats and its coalition partners none.