Dev Nadkarni: Isolated Bainimarama uses crisis to tighten grip

Dev Nadkarni

Opinion

Fiji strongman Commodore Frank Bainimarama's Easter break was unusually short.

Bainimarama stepped down as interim prime minister following the Fijian Court of Appeal's ruling that the December 2006 dismissal of the Laisenia Qarase Government and the appointment of his interim government in its place were illegal.

A day later he was in back in business as caretaker prime minister. The development has led to an unprecedented constitutional crisis.

Though state lawyers applied for a stay on the decision, the court, comprising Justices Ian Lloyd, Randall Powell and Francis Douglas, refused to grant it. The court ruled the President had no authority under the 1997 constitution to appoint an interim government, which President Ratu Josefa Iloilo did in February 2007, supposedly legitimising Bainimarama's December 2006 military action.

But at the same time, the court also asked the President to appoint a new interim government with the proviso that neither Bainimarama, Qarase nor anyone from the former's interim government should be appointed as the interim prime minister.

The President responded to this contradiction in his address to the nation noting the court had said the appointment of the interim government was invalid because it was not in accordance with the constitution, however it had said he should appoint a third person as the caretaker prime minister when there was no provision in the constitution.

The President decided to abrogate the constitution, sacking the entire judiciary. In this complete political vacuum, he appointed himself the President, clamped on a state of emergency for the next month - and brought Bainimarama back.

Bainimarama has denied that he advised the President in the hours following the Court of Appeal ruling but the events that followed leave little room for doubt that there was some sort of understanding between the President and the Army chief.

Having abrogated the constitution on the grounds that he had no constitutional sanction to appoint a new government, now as in February 2007, President Iloilo could have respected the spirit of the court's proviso that neither Bainimarama nor Qarase be appointed as the new prime minister.

Instead, he chose to hurriedly reappoint Bainimarama under the pretext that the country faced a political crisis that had the potential to spiral into a violent civilian one.

In fact there was some jubilation that the interim government had stepped down and there was expectation that here was a chance for a way out of the two-year-long crisis.

In the absence of a constitution, the country is being ruled by decrees which will be enforced by the reappointed military administration (possibly for years, if one goes by the President's statement that elections would not be held before 2014).

The first decree is about the state of emergency, section 16 of which asks the media to be "responsible" in its reporting.

The publishers and editors of two of the country's dailies were questioned for leaving blank spaces in their Sunday editions in protest of the censorship.

Overseas correspondents reporting on the crisis have also been questioned and deported with some reports of their equipment being seized.

The Fiji Times pulled its social networking SotiaCentral website because the new Fiji interim government has issued regulations requiring publishers to first submit all content to government officials for clearance before publishing it.

The latest developments have brought the international community's two-year-long efforts to work with Fiji to bring back democracy to a grinding halt.

The Pacific Island Forum's deadline imposed on the regime in February this year to come up with a plan by May 1 to hold elections before the end of 2009 and the Commonwealth's September 2009 deadline are now completely meaningless.

There is little doubt that over the past two years, the Fijian military has dug its roots deep into the island's soil and the international community has long lost the window of opportunity of engaging meaningfully with Bainimarama, following instead a relentless policy of isolation, of driving his regime to the corner.

Dev Nadkarni is an Auckland journalist and editor of pacificbusinessonline.com

Dev.nadkarni@gmail.com