Surprise Fiji PM predicts elections in 5 months

SUVA - A minister in Fiji's post-coup, Army-backed Government was unexpectedly sworn in as Prime Minister of the racially split nation yesterday and said elections would be held within five months.

Ratu Tevita Momoedonu was sworn in by his uncle, President Ratu Josefa Iloilo, during a ceremony convened hastily at Lautoka, on the northwest of Fiji's main island Viti Levu.

Momoedonu was labour minister in the post-coup Government - which has since been declared illegal - and was also a minister in the multiracial pre-coup Government of Mahendra Chaudhry.

"It was entirely the President's prerogative and I accepted the task to try to facilitate in the smooth and normal running of the country," Momoedonu said of his surprise nomination.

Momoedonu said he would recommend to Iloilo that general elections be held some time in August. Iloilo is due to be sworn in formally as President today after being appointed by the powerful Great Council of Chiefs on Tuesday.

Iloilo and the chiefs, a gathering of indigenous rulers, have been trying to find a way out of Fiji's political crisis since the Court of Appeal ruled on March 1 that the military-backed Government of interim Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase was illegal.

Qarase was installed after failed businessman George Speight, who proclaimed himself a champion of indigenous Fijians battling the economic supremacy of the Indian minority, took Chaudhry, Fiji's first ethnic Indian Prime Minister, hostage last May 19.

The two most likely options Iloilo had faced were to dissolve Parliament and call elections or to appoint a government of national unity.

Momoedonu said he would advise Iloilo to recall Parliament and dissolve it immediately, freeing the way under the constitution for a caretaker government to lead the nation to elections.

Momoedonu said it was possible he could act in the role for only a short time and that Iloilo could install another caretaker government once Parliament was dissolved.

Momoedonu's appointment was a surprise move by Iloilo, who had been expected to name Qarase as caretaker premier.

Iloilo has stressed the need to avoid the widespread violence against ethnic Indians that was sparked by Speight and his supporters.

- REUTERS

Herald Online feature: the Fiji coup

Full text plus audio:
Court of Appeal upholds constitution

Full text: