KEY POINTS:
Tomorrow marks the first anniversary of Fiji's fourth coup.
One year on, coup leader and Interim Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama has by and large managed to keep his fiercest critics at bay by getting his administration to meet most of the milestones set by international agencies, on the
way to the promised return to democracy following elections in early 2009.
But his administration has fallen hopelessly short of producing convincing evidence for the stated rationale of his coup - widespread corruption in the ousted regime.
In March this year, in an interview with this writer for the New Zealand Herald, Bainimarama had said, "Just four-five months after December 5, we will have plenty to show the international community why we did what we did."
Despite a newly formed Anti Corruption Commission armed with investigators sifting through rooms full of seized documents, the administration has been unable to secure any convictions so far. That, though, has not cramped Bainimarama's style. He continues to publicly accuse not just the previous administration but also non-governmental organisations (NGOs), the judiciary, lawyers, accountants and other professionals of dishonesty, collusion, corruption and malpractice in his trademark fire and brimstone speeches.
A year into his new job, Bainimarama continues to shoot straight from the hip in the style of an army strongman without the faintest of hints of a politician in the making.
Other than his administration's systematic work on the democracy road map, closely watched by international observers, a game plan for himself and his administration for the next 16 months and beyond is not apparent - at least at this stage.
But what is worrying is the absence of any strategy - or even the possibility of devising one - for the changes in the political system that he has been so passionately espousing. Over the past few months he has time and again stirred the long simmering cauldron of Fiji's most contentious issues, especially the race-based electoral system that has the sanction of its present constitution.
He has sought to link Fiji's problems of race relations to the long debated prickly question of what constitutes the Fijian identity.
His rationale for bringing this up repeatedly is that he does not want the next elections to be fought along racial lines, as has always been the case in Fiji. That ideal, though, would be difficult to achieve if elections are held under the present constitution, which the administration can do little to change given its interim status.
So how will this be dealt with? While there seems to be a consensus developing in most circles about the need to hold the 2009 elections under a more egalitarian system, there are no easy answers on how to do this.
Even if it comes up with some sort of solution and plans to go ahead with these changes, the interim administration will have to contend with strong opposition from extreme right-wing indigenous elements, particularly from the ousted Government.
As the attention of the international community remains focused on the road map to the elections in early 2009, any number of challenges could spring up during the actual run up over the next one year. For months there have been rumours of assassination plots, which got some credence last month with the arrest of about a dozen alleged conspirators, including two New Zealand citizens. But like the corruption charges, the authorities have fallen short in delivering hard evidence as many of those arrested remain in custody - and creating suspicion in some circles that it may be a ploy to disrupt the election process.
The interim administration has repeatedly assured the world that it is in "effective control" of the country. But after an initial dip in violent crime following the coup, the numbers have risen sharply over the past few months. That comes amid increasing allegations of abuse of power by both the police and the military - unmistakable signs of a state's law enforcement machinery getting used to the trappings of authoritarianism.
But Bainimarama has all along insisted on returning the country to democracy, which automatically means a diminished role for Fiji's disproportionately large armed forces that have been the vehicle that delivered all its four coups.
In the near total absence of any strategy that describes his and the Army's role after the 2009 elections, some sort of pressure from senior elements to maintain the status quo would come as no surprise, no matter how sincere Bainimarama's personal intentions.
* Auckland-based Dev Nadkarni is editor of news website islandsbusiness.com
