HELEN TUNNAH charts a 'novice' politician's progress from being a former banker to taking on the leadership of his country - three times.
SUVA - He has been named Fiji's Prime Minister three times in little more than a year, yet Laisenia Qarase says he is a reluctant leader.
"I didn't want to be a politician," he said after being sworn in this week.
"Personally, I was due to retire this year and I was looking forward to it, to going to my little island. But I was thrown into it. I have a job to do and I will do it. I have started something and I must finish. I have some working life left."
He knows some people do not think a former banker is politically shrewd enough to be Prime Minister. But the mere fact he has become Prime Minister three times in 14 months, through a coup, despite legal challenges and after winning an election, provides a hint of his mettle.
He has also outwitted Fiji's smartest politician, by using a nationalist agenda to beat coup victim Mahendra Chaudhry in the elections and then stubbornly deny him a place in cabinet despite constitutional requirements.
He also has influential friends. His paramount chief is Fiji's most important post-colonial leader Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara. People in Fiji say Qarase is "one hundred and one per cent" Mara's man.
He said that Ratu Mara had not asked him to step in as caretaker Prime Minister, after last year's George Speight-led coup.
But it was Ratu Mara who endorsed Qarase as the candidate for the Lau group of islands in this election, ahead of the expected nominee Ratu Mara's daughter.
Qarase was born 61 years ago in Mavana Village, in the eastern Lau group of islands - closer to Tonga than Fiji, and Ratu Mara's stronghold. He completed a commerce degree at the University of Auckland, before taking up a job in the civil service with the Fijian Affairs Board, responsible for indigenous issues.
He moved into finance positions throughout the civil service, even working with Chaudhry in the Public Service Commission. By 1983 Qarase headed the Fiji Development Bank, a post he held for 14 years before becoming chief executive of the Merchant Bank of Fiji, a subsidiary of the investment company Fijian Holdings Limited.
Political rows have rocked both the Fiji Development Bank and Fijian Holdings Limited over loans being approved inappropriately. Qarase left the Merchant Bank in 1999 to join Fiji's Upper House, the Senate. He was a nominee of the powerful indigenous Fijian body, the Great Council of Chiefs, and specifically Ratu Mara.
His clashes with Chaudhry soon revealed the political novice would not shirk from his advocacy of the paramountcy of indigenous Fijians.
Chaudhry had become Fiji's first ethnic Indian Prime Minister after a Labour election landslide. Against advice, he tried to push into law limitations on affirmative action programmes for indigenous Fijians, wanting to make assistance programmes available to ethnic Indians as well.
He was told such a move would inflame racial tensions, and it was Qarase who spoke out.
It should have come as a surprise to no one when Qarase this week simply refused to work with Chaudhry.
Qarase became Prime Minister after promising multimillion dollar compensations for Fijian landowners. Labour won four fewer seats than Qarase's SDL, and under Fiji's multiracial constitution he was obliged to invite Chaudhry to share power in cabinet.
Qarase reluctantly issued the invitation and was furious, although not surprised, when Chaudhry accepted. Qarase then refused to have him. Chaudhry plans legal action, but it will be a lengthy process, and for now, Qarase will continue to govern. "My advice is that it is legally okay."
He will review the constitution, and its multiparty cabinet clauses. "I think it is a ridiculous concept, it is an abuse of a multiparty democracy."
Last month Qarase declared it would be 20 or 30 years before Fiji accepted an ethnic Indian Prime Minister, but he denies that indicates he is racist. "I am not a racist. I am trying to be a realist. We have inherited problems of the past. Multiracialism was being talked about, but nothing was being done."
Those same policies are supported by another post-coup political party, the Conservative Alliance. Among the extreme party's new MPs is George Speight, although he remains in jail facing treason charges.
Qarase has shown he at least understands he cannot release Speight without risking the wrath of the international community, and the fragile Fiji economy could not stand that. But he also says it is important for Fiji that Speight faces justice, to ensure there are no more coups.
With official poverty levels reaching 25 per cent of the population, and with jobless rural areas struggling, Qarase says armed coups cannot be afforded, let alone tolerated. "Our country has gone backwards since 1987, or at least has not progressed as fast as it should."
"Everything will be done by the law, I've never changed my stance on that. There are consequences for what he did and I hope that message is being heard loud and clear by our people.
"I don't think we will ever have what Speight did happen in our country ever again."
- NZPA
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