Asia Times: Fiji under a shadow


	September 13, 2001	atimes.com

Oceania

PACIFIC BEAT
Fiji under a shadow
By Alan Boyd

SYDNEY - Laisenia Qarase, the colorless banker who has been sworn in as Fiji's new leader, is the antithesis of the loud-mouthed ruffians who seized control of the national parliament building more than a year ago.

Respected in the financial community for his administrative acumen, and with a leadership vision that wins cautious approval from foreign diplomats, Qarase could provide the steady hand that Fiji needs as it steers through the racial tempest stoked up by this month's general election.

But he probably won't. At best, we can expect his conservative alliance to reinforce the ethnic polarization that it so fervently exploited during the poll; at worst, Fiji will become ungovernable, and quite possibly unliveable.

It is not that Qarase is unaware of the likely consequences of pursuing his inflammatory campaign rhetoric, which pledged to reinforce the racial superiority of native Fijians and redress the wealth advantages enjoyed by the minority Indian community.

Rather that he is more at home dealing with numbers than issues. Hence the simplistic rationalization that appealed to voters: political upheaval is bad for the economy, so suppress dissent. If Fijians can't compete against their more industrial and enterprising Indo-Fijian neighbors, then give them more of the resource base.

The sting in this dose of business "realism" is that the economy can't survive without the help of the Indian entrepreneurs who were courageous enough to keep their money in Fiji after the parliament takeover and subsequent coup. An exodus can be expected now that voters have rejected Labor Party leader Mahendra Chaudhry, the ethnic Indian who was toppled in the insurrection.

Where does that leave Fiji, with the economy already on its knees? Undoubtedly in a more precarious position than it was under the appointed transitional government headed by Qarase, which was disbanded at court order earlier this year after being declared undemocratic.

Qarase was preoccupied with damage control during that shortlived tenure, but also found time to tap into the indigenous working class frustrations that spawned the parliamentary uprising headed by George Speight.

Evidently a quick learner in the political game, he approved US$25 million in compensation to aggrieved landowners, gave cash handouts to deprived rural constituencies - especially his own - and planted associates in key posts.

All good public relations exercises that stood Qarase in good stead during the election and will bolster his moral standing as he delivers on the promised new ethnic social charter.

This time round Qarase is on much sturdier turf, with a legitimate mandate derived from the ballot box - and, seemingly - strong establishment backing to institute a Malaysian Bumipitra form of economic segregation.

He is resisting a constitutional obligation to share power with Chaudhry, who is entitled to occupy 46 percent of ministerial posts under the ethnic compromise approved following the coup.

If Qarase gets his way, proportional voting will be introduced to prevent Labor from collecting the preferences of smaller parties, thus consigning it to the political fringe.

A seat may even be found in the government for Speight, whose court hearing on treason charges related to the parliamentary storming has conveniently been postponed for six months. What better than an alliance of the two biggest nationalist groupings?

With the Indians thoroughly demoralized and no viable opposition, Fiji could well achieve a more stable political environment, but at what cost to its social cohesion ?

So confident is Qarase of reversing the tentative post-coup rebuilding of Fiji's democracy that it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that he is playing out the agenda of another power bloc, probably in the military.

Dominated by native Fijians, the armed forces showed their hand in June last year when they endorsed Qarase's blueprint for overturning the multiracial 1997 constitution and pursuing affirmative action programs for indigenous Fijians.

It is no secret that most officers would prefer a return to the pre-1997 era of quasi-tribal political dominance by ethnic Melanesians, if only to protect their own shadowy business interests from scrutiny by Chaudhry's more aggressive grassroots labor movement.

But puppet governments are only as good as the strings that bind them, and the military ones are already starting to fray. Factional infighting is rife, corruption endemic and morale low. Mix in personal ambition, stir the ethnic pot and Qarase's blueprint will soon take on a khaki tinge.

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