Fiji mulls next move as former PM told to go

Fiji mulls next move as former PM told to go

SUVA (Agencies): Fiji's ousted prime minister was under
growing pressure on Tuesday not to seek reinstatement as the
interim government considered its response to a court ruling that
it is illegal.

The cabinet met on Tuesday and later briefed President Ratu
Josefa Iloilo on possible options in the wake of the court
ruling. Iloilo and Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase have said they
would abide by a ruling restoring the multiracial 1997
Constitution, abandoned after last year's coup.

The Fiji Appeal Court last week ruled that Qarase's interim
government, imposed by the military following the coup, was
illegal, and said that Iloilo must recall parliament and vacate
his office by March 15.

Troops ringed the government building in Suva during the
cabinet meeting in a show of force by the military.

Fiji Radio, citing sources, reported that government lawyers
told the cabinet that it must resign, but it may be able to stay
on in a caretaker role. The cabinet was expected to meet again on
Wednesday, the station said.

The government did not make any statement on the meeting.
With no timetable for restoring democracy, former prime minister
Mahendra Chaudhry's five-party People's Coalition was in
disarray.

Three of the parties said on Monday they support a government
of national unity, despite Chaudhry's opposition. Chaudhry's Fiji
Labor Party was one of the three parties backing a unity
government.

There is a growing belief in the coalition that an indigenous
Fijian at the head of a government of national unity is needed to
unite the ethnically divided nation. Chaudhry was the country's
first ethnic Indian prime minister before being deposed by
nationalist gunmen in the May coup.

Ethnic Indians make up 44 percent of the population.
Indigenous Fijians account for 51 percent. Relations crumbled as
Indians gained more economic and political power, culminating
with Chaudhry's 1999 election.

Chaudhry admitted on Tuesday there were four other coalition
candidates for his job, but maintained the alliance was not
disintegrating. He said the leadership should be determined when
parliament is recalled.

"The coalition is intact, we have had some problems on this
score, and the decision is that when parliament is recalled this
matter will be settled," he said.

Pressure for Chaudhry to step aside is growing, from within
and outside Fiji.

Former deputy prime minister, Tupeni Baba, a leading candidate
to replace Chaudhry, told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio on
Tuesday the coalition has decided Chaudhry must go.

"Mahendra Chaudhry has been found by people to be totally
unsuitable for governing this country," Baba said. "They have
called for his stepping down, not only from our party but from
everywhere."

A report in The Fiji Times newspaper on Tuesday said army
commander Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama told the National Security
Council that Chaudhry was a national security threat. An army
spokesman said the report was not the military's official view.

New Zealand's High Commissioner to Suva, Tia Barrett, told
Radio New Zealand on Tuesday the situation in the South Pacific
nation is increasingly unstable.

Chaudhry's determination to stay on, "has raised a great deal
of concern within the public, because they fear this could bring
a backlash from the Fijian population and particularly the
nationalists who have made it very clear, publicly, that they
don't wish to see Chaudhry back in the seat," he said.

Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said Tuesday his
government would lift economic sanctions imposed on Fiji after
the coup if leaders moved quickly toward establishing a national
unity government.

However, Downer warned that more sanctions could be imposed if
the Great Council of Chiefs, an important group of traditional
leaders, did not uphold the rule of law.

"If they decide on top of all the things that have happened
that they're going to flout the rule of law then obviously it
would generate a very negative reaction from us," Downer told
Australian Broadcasting Radio. "We wouldn't sit on our hands in a
situation like that."

In a new development, Chaudhry conceded here on Tuesday that
new general elections may be necessary to bring Fiji back to
constitutional rule.

Elected as Fiji's first Indian prime minister in May, 1999,
and deposed by a coup a year later, Chaudhry said he believed an
election as early as possible may now be the only solution to
constitutional crisis.