Fiji elections resume after weekend of drama

Thursday, 09 May, 2006 0

Voting in Fiji’s racially charged election resumed on Monday as officials sought to assure voters opening day glitches would not affect the outcome, but observers feared that the real trouble may come after ballots are cast.

Some minor problems were reported but there was no repeat of the chaotic start to the week-long poll on Saturday, when thousands of voters waited for hours because ballot boxes and papers were late arriving. Some voters were turned away.

Those problems added to a tense build-up to the election made worse by a public slanging match between Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase and the South Pacific nation’s outspoken military chief.

There are fears that Fiji’s worst election problems will come after the vote because of the racial tensions between indigenous Fijians and ethnic Indians, whose ancestors were brought to work British sugar cane farms from the late 1800s.

Racial tensions have resulted in three coups by indigenous nationalists against Indian-dominated governments since 1987.

Indigenous Fijians make up 51 percent of the 906,000 population and fear that the economic clout of Indians, who dominate the sugar- and tourism-based economy, will be matched by political might.

Military chief Frank Bainimarama warned candidates not to incite racial hatred after the prime minister said during campaigning that Fiji was not yet ready for an Indian leader.

He and Police Commissioner Andrew Hughes have also warned they will not tolerate a repeat of the 1987 and 2000 coups.

“We are not going to allow some radical elements who decided they don’t like the outcome of the democratic process and they’re going to take the law into their own hands and change it. No, that’s not going to happen,” Hughes told reporters.

Graham Muldoon

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