Mahendra Chaudhry in 1999 with then Prime Minister Jenny Shipley. Photo / Mark Mitchell
SUVA - Fiji's former prime minister Mahendra Chaudhry - twice before deposed from government in coups - on Tuesday joined the interim cabinet formed by Voreqe Bainimarama, who overthrew the elected government last month.
Chaudhry, Fiji's first ethnic Indian prime minister before being deposed and held hostage for
56 days in 2000, was sworn in as finance minister by reinstated President Ratu Josefa Iloilo.
Chaudhry held the finance portfolio in 1987 when Sitiveni Rabuka led a military coup to reassert the political supremacy of indigenous Fijians over ethnic Indians.
Chaudhry was one of six ministers sworn in Tuesday to serve under Bainimarama, the interim prime minister, military commander and leader of the December 5 coup which deposed the elected government of prime minister Laisenia Qarase.
Another eight ministers were sworn in on Monday as Bainimarama consolidates his hold on power following the bloodless coup, the fourth in two decades.
Chaudhry, the leader of the Labour Party which narrowly lost elections to Qarase's United Fiji Party last year, has not yet commented on why he has accepted a position in the post-coup government.
He will also hold the portfolios of national planning and sugar reform, and government sources said he was also expected to be named deputy prime minister this week.
Another Labour Party member, Lekh Ram Vayeshnoi, who served as minister for energy and mineral resources in Qarase's multi-party cabinet, was named as youth, sports and employment opportunities minister.
One member of Qarase's United Fiji Party, Jone Navakamocea, was sworn in on Tuesday as minister of local government and urban development.
The naming of an interim government was set in motion last week when Bainimarama reappointed 86-year-old close ally Iloilo as president. Iloilo then swore in Bainimarama as interim prime minister the following day.
New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters last week described the appointment of Bainimarama as interim prime minister as a charade designed to legitimise the coup.
- AFP
