Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka‘s tactic of using taxpayer funds to acquire the votes of previously independent former members of FijiFirst by buying them off with ministerial positions has now given him control of 70 per cent of the parliament. And he is just four votes short of the magic 75 per cent that will enable him to change the Constitution.
Change to what? It’s a question Grubsheet, for one, has been asking for months without getting a single answer from the Prime Minister or anyone else who wants to alter the supreme law. Does it include abolishing the common and equal citizenry and the common identity that Fiji’s minorities secured for the first time in the 2013 Constitution? We have to suspect that it does, given the Prime Minister’s silence and his commitment to indigenous supremacy that goes back to his coups of 1987.
If they have any sense of self-preservation, the nation’s minorities should be deeply worried. Because all it will take now is for four members of the Group of 16 former FijiFirst members to be enticed across the floor of the parliament with the promise of riches at the taxpayer’s expense for Rabuka to begin changing the Constitution legally.
He would have the support to achieve the 75 per cent threshold in the parliament required under the Constitution to alter it – an extraordinary achievement that most would have thought impossible until now because the bar is set so high yet is now within reach. The craven nature of our politicians and the temptation of salaries that went through the roof last year make acquiring those elusive four remaining votes tantalisingly close.
Of course, even if the Prime Minister were to find four more traitors to betray the principles of the party on whose coattails they rode to power and achieve the magic 75 per cent, the Constitution stipulates that he would still have to get 75 per cent of voters to agree to change in a national referendum. But who is to say that constitutional provision would withstand the first barrier being surmounted – the fact that 75 per cent of the nation’s elected representatives had voted for change?
The Coalition has already played so fast and loose with the supreme law and Rabuka and those around them are so determined to alter it that it is the easiest thing in the world to imagine them going to the country and saying: “75 per cent of your elected representatives support change, parliament is the ultimate authority in the country, therefore there is no need for a costly referendum and we are forging ahead without it”.
This makes the question of which parts of the Constitution they want changed a burning issue of the moment. Yet the Prime Minister and his supporters are continually getting away with avoiding the hard questions about whether change includes removing the common and equal citizenry (equal votes of equal value) and the common identity (everyone Fijian). For non-indigenous citizens – close to one third of the nation – these are the only provisions that really matter. Because to revert to the constitutions of the past will again establish us as second class citizens in the land of our birth. And that is simply unacceptable.
Were the Prime Minister to say: “Look, the common and equal citizenry and the common identity aren’t in question and will remain”, he would do a great deal to reassure the minorities that their rights will be respected. But he isn’t doing that. Far from it. There is a constant mantra about “changing the constitution” but neither he nor anyone else is addressing the elephant in the room. What change? And it is a question that must be answered before we go any further.
With the appointment of the six new ministers and assistant ministers from the G9 (we were told it was seven in the media yesterday but only six were sworn in), there has been a mixed reaction, most of it bad. The Prime Minister said with a straight face that it wouldn’t involve any extra burden on the taxpayer “because it is already in the budget”. Bullsh*t. Of course it involves extra expense and the average Fijian knows it. And it is already clear from the public reaction that the people simply aren’t buying Rabuka’s lasulasu-jhoot.
And what happened with Siromi Turaga? The Fiji Times front page yesterday said he was gone from the Justice Ministry based on the Prime Minister saying “yes” to the question: “Is Siromi Turaga being reassigned? “But there was no announcement yesterday and while visibly chastened, the architect of the Pryde and Nakarawa debacles is still in the justice portfolio. For the moment.
With Sitiveni Rabuka at the helm, the government lurches from one crisis to another and the Fijian people have come to expect poor governance and instability as a semi-permanent state. But it doesn’t mean they accept it. Disillusion is spreading as fast as a California wildfire and astonishingly, extends today to Fred Wesley‘s editorial in the normally supine Fiji Times.
When even Fred gets restive and turns his attention from sport to politics, we can be sure that the chronic incompetence, cynicism and gross opportunism of these clowns is really starting to bite.
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Fred is finally stirred into action…
Strangely, the Fiji Sun is taking a more conciliatory line…
But the view on the street is not in the Prime Minister’s favour.
And finally, the last word today from Nilesh Lal – the head of Dialogue Fiji – with a withering attack on the Prime Minister and the Coalition, accusing them of “living it up” at the expense of ordinary taxpayers.
Grubsheet had cause to criticise Nilesh Lal recently over his defence of Lynda Tabuya. But on this issue, he is devastatingly spot on.
But where are the other NGOs, and especially Shamima Ali?
The post # FOR FIJI’S MINORITIES, WE ARE NOW FOUR VOTES AWAY FROM CATASTROPHE first appeared on grubsheet.
Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka‘s tactic of using taxpayer funds to acquire the votes of previously independent former members of FijiFirst by buying them off with ministerial positions has now given him control of 70 per cent of the parliament. And he is just four votes short of the magic 75 per cent that will enable […]
The post # FOR FIJI’S MINORITIES, WE ARE NOW FOUR VOTES AWAY FROM CATASTROPHE first appeared on grubsheet.
2025-01-10T18:54:01.000Z
