SUVA - Fiji coup leader George Speight, imprisoned awaiting a treason trial in February, has lost his seat in Parliament because he has missed two parliamentary sessions.
Police yesterday called for calm from Speight's nationalists, who rejected his disqualification from Parliament and said they were considering a legal challenge andpossible street protests.
Speight led a coup in May last year, overthrowing the Government of Fiji's first ethnic Indian Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry.
A military-appointed indigenous Government ruled the south Pacific nation until elections in September, but Speight has languished in an island prison off Suva charged with treason after his supporters failed to hand in all their weapons under an amnesty.
Parliamentary Speaker Epeli Nailatikau said that under the constitution an MP was allowed to be absent from only two sessions of Parliament. Fiji has been rocked by three racist coups since 1987 with the country divided between indigenous Fijians and ethnic Indians, descendants of Indians brought to work sugar plantations.
Indigenous Fijians fear Indians, who dominate business, will also gain political supremacy. Ethnic Indians make up 44 per cent of the 800,000 population.
