Mahendra “Mac” Motibhai Patel – the “Chairman Emeritus” of the company that owns the Fiji Times – is back for the New Year continuing to misuse the nation’s traditional newspaper of record to push his personal and political agenda.
In today’s edition, the only man in Fijian history never to serve the jail sentence he was given for abuse of office again sings for his Coalition pardon with another article calling for the “abrogation” of the 2013 Constitution. Not merely changes to the supreme law but the whole thing flushed away and replaced.
But his hero, the Prime Minister, Sitiveni Rabuka, will be less than pleased that Mac the Crook is predicting a dismal year ahead just when Rabuka wants to see sunlit uplands as the months tick down to his day of judgment at the hands of the electorate in 2026.
“2025 will be no better” is not the kind of headline that is helpful as Rabuka and his government wallow in dysfunction and chaos. Because if Mac Patel’s prediction of a bad year is correct, the Coalition is not exactly setting itself up for victory.
It’s an astonishing insight into this man’s crazed mind that as he ranges across a troubled world, he begins by suggesting that of all the world’s challenges, the 2013 Constitution is the most serious. Seriously, folks. I kid you not. The following is the opening paragraph of his article today that is conclusive proof that the owner of the Fiji Times has lost it.
As always – as he tries to support the agenda of the man he gifted a gold Rolex watch to in 1987 – Mac the Crook doesn’t say why all the world’s problems derive from the 2013 Constitution.
Could the owner of the Fiji Times possibly support the secret agenda of the Prime Minister to abrogate the Constitution to get rid of the common and equal citizenry and the common identity that the 2013 Constitution introduced for the first time? It sure looks like it. How is that going to ingratiate him with the country’s minorities?
Here’s the thing, Fiji. The owner of the Fiji Times is misusing the power of his newspaper to push a barrel that isn’t in the interests of the one third of the country that isn’t indigenous. He wants us to be second class citizens and to lose the equal rights that the 2013 Constitution enshrines.
The first thing you can do to fight back is to stop buying the Fiji Times (the Fiji Sun is a much better paper anyway) and boycott the rest of the operations of the Motibhai Group. For those of you who aren’t the Prime Minister and didn’t get a free gold Rolex from Mac the Crook, don’t shop at Prouds. Take your business to the Tappoos, who are a much more respectable bunch than the Motibhai Patels of Ba.
And when the next election comes around, vote for a political party committed to stopping the corruption that has reduced the country’s traditional “first draft of history” to a worthless rag. The Motibhai Patels must be stripped of the ownership of the Fiji Times for their misuse of this national asset and ownership transferred to a company committed to restoring its integrity and the trust of the Fijian people.
Mac the Crook might have been pardoned by the recipient of his gold Rolex. But the judgment of the people awaits. And the national interest dictates that the Motibhai Patels be sent packing.
NOTE:
For more articles on Mac Patel and his relationship with the Prime Minister stretching back four decades, just enter his name in the Grubsheet search engine to the right.
It’s an incredible saga that deserves a grisly end for both of them.
—————–
And just when the election countdown is beginning in earnest, judging from a brace of stories in today’s Fiji Sun. They include plans for a new party by the prominent Nadi lawyer Dorsami Naidu, who mounts a withering attack on the Coalition and his old partners in the NFP.
UPDATE SUNDAY AM:
The Motibhai Patels just can’t help themselves when it comes to self-promotion in their own newspaper.
We’ve seen new product launches at Prouds passed off as “national news” and now they use a letter from a notorious brown-noser to give prominence to pedestrian remarks by their current Chairman, Kirit Patel.
Memo Kirit Patel: You may be in favour with the current government but that can easily change. And you and your Emeritus Chairman are building a case for a future government to strip you of the Fiji Times because of your flagrant misuse of the paper.
Only toadies like Rajnesh Ishwar Lingham think that the Fiji Times is “delivering high standards of journalism”. On any rational analysis, it falls way short of what the nation deserves from Fiji’s traditional newspaper of record. And you and your family have amply demonstrated that you have no understanding of proper editorial conduct and are unfit to hold the title.
Need another example? The corrupt nature of the relationship between the Fiji Times and the Coalition government sees former government advisors-turned FT reporters writing crude propaganda like the article that has raised the ire of one of Grubsheet’s readers.
And no mention, of course, of Aseri Radrodro, the domestic violence abuser who almost killed the Prime Minister’s daughter or his “brutal” sexual antics with Lynda Tabuya in Room 233.
Yes, Kirit Patel. The Fiji Times has debased the practice of journalism and has betrayed the trust of the Fijian people.
You are on notice that you and your family will eventually be brought to account. And in the court of public opinion, it is already happening.
Tick, tick, tick.
I’m not an expert. But after viewing and analyzing this post from beginning to the end, line by line, word by word, letter by letter… my only judgement of Mac Patel is: What a fruit cake, a fruit loop.
From amid chaos and dysfunction comes terrible decisions and tax holidays. The wheels have fallen off and the only way to get them back on is fiscal sense.
You know what they say to have great success you need to surround yourself with the best and brightest.
Ask anyone on top of their game.
Rabuka has associated and consulted with not only the worst, the uneducated, the drunks but as low as you could go.. pedophiles and crooks and dare I say sluts. He can’t seriously think it could have worked.
I don’t want to hear his self pity how he did his best when he didn’t do the most basic requirements and plundered the nation.
He cannot manage people even to get potholes filled or an elevator working. How on earth did he think he can run a country.
If we go by the Coalition’s track record, then 2025 will only be far worse than 2024.
More crime, more drugs, more lies, more corruption, more racism, more mass migration and obviously more circus from the ministers.
Is getting rid of the Constitution going to fix any of that?
The Constitution is the only reason they are in government. That is the only reason they could form a coalition with a one seat majority which gives them mandate to do exactly nothing. But these imbeciles think they can do what they want and they have.
As for the people of Fiji, they are all third-raters and they deserve what they have voted for. Don’t understand why then, they are all jumping up and down.
Nothing more than an infantile tantrum……hate the world and everything is wrong in it unless I get my way.
Being a millionaire or owner of a newspaper does not necessarily make one a good political analyst of global events and politics.
And that is Mac Patel!
His write up is all over the place and his message (if there is even one) is so diluted with his narrative all jumbled up in an incoherent and twisted amateurish manner.
Someone should take him skydiving. They say it’s something to die for.
Mac the Convict is urging the Government to commit a criminal offence. The Constitution cannot be abrogated legally. He must be arrested and charged for incitement under S48 of the Crimes Act: A person who urges the commission of an offence is guilty of the offence of incitement.
This guy is common thug with some money to his name, that is all.
Dorsami….who?
Doorsami ……., Baimaan’s right hand man in Nadi in 2022 election.
Mad Mac Patel is carrying on in his senility because he knows his partner in crime, Rabuka, is on the other end. Did we hear from Mad Mac when FB and ASK were in government?
Rabuka has to keep silent as senile Mad Mac could spill some ver delicious beans of their past expeditions.
Oh, and possibly miss out on another Rolex as well. 🤔
Abrogating the Constitution will not fix the mess this Government has created and 2025 will be another year of them promising and doing nothing. They are hopeless!
You have a senile Prime Minister, an incompetent Finance Minister whose academic theories have not worked and a Cabinet of Ministers and Assistant Ministers who are more interested in travel and feathering their own nests than improving the lives of the Fijian people.
As for the Judiciary, led by a racist CJ, who is working as hard as he can to ignore the rule of law and the very Constitution he swore to uphold.
I used to think the Fiji Times was a paper to buy and read. Not anymore!
And like GD I will be telling people don’t buy the paper and don’t buy from Motibhai Group companies and businesses. Like good capitalists they only react when you hurt their pocket!
I would rather befriend a croc in the river than be friends with the money worshipping ilk of the Motibhai type. The croc will not pretend to be your friend. The other type will, so they can extract as much as possible, for as long as possible from you, to enrich only themselves. Mastery of deception is on par with a snake who comes as a dove.
Boycott motibhai, how about:
Burger King fast for Jan 2025.
Brunswick canned sardines, mackerel, salmon , tuna.
Golden branded cooking oils and margarine.
Golden branded spices.
Sprint soft drinks.
Whittaker’s chocolate range.
Unilever personal care products.
Maya dhaba restaurant in Suva.
Etc etc
More could be supplied to this list if requested .
Hit them where it hits hard – the only thing they worship – the mighty dollar $$$. Because these types will even sell off Earth if they could, to the highest bidding alien invader from planet Zarbos .