# A NEW MARA ERA LOOMS IN FIJI AS RATU TEVITA CONTEMPLATES WIELDING HIS POWER AS THE SOLE D’HONDT “BIG MAN” CAPABLE OF DISLODGING SITIVENI RABUKA

The assumption that the removal of Frank Bainimarama from being able to contest next year’s election means the inevitable triumph of Sitiveni Rabuka has been turned on its head with speculation that Ratu Tevita Mara – the newly-installed high chief of Lau – is destined to enter the political fray and take up the mantle of his father – the nation’s giant founding prime minister, Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara.

The accompanying photo is of the Tui Nayau – the title Ratu Tevita inherited from his father – with the multi-millionaire who is his principal political backer, Vadivelu (Wella) Pillay – the former deputy chair of the Fiji Development Bank and self-styled entrepreneur who has built his fortune on construction equipment rentals, logging and now barges servicing the scattered islands of the Lau Group.

Just as Ratu Mara senior had his financial backer a generation ago in the form of Hari Punja – then Fiji’s richest man and still thriving more than four decades later – Wella Pillay is willing to put his money behind Ratu Tevita as the sole person, at least for now, capable of gaining a mass vote under the d’Hondt electoral system to knock Sitiveni Rabuka off his perch.

And doubtless many more of the business elite will be coming forward if the Tui Nayau can convince the nation that he can resurrect the glory days of his father’s era, when Fiji was described by the then Pope as “the way the world should be” and Ratu Sir Kamisese strode the region and the world as an acknowledged statesman and the nation enjoyed stability, prosperity and global respect.

There is no love lost between Ratu Tevita Mara and Sitiveni Rabuka, who was a notable absentee at Mara’s installation as Tui Nayau in Tubou village, Lakeba ( where Grubsheet spent his first years) back in July.

Mara the son reportedy flies into a rage whenever the Prime Minister suggests that his adored father was a principal instigator of Rabuka’s 1987 coup, despite persistent allegations that it was to keep Ratu Sir Kamisese in power after he was defeated in the election of the same year by the late Dr Timoci Bavadra at the head of a resurgent Labour Party.

In Sitiveni Rabuka’s farcical appearance at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearing last week – in which he obscenely talked abut the negative impact on his own family of his monstrous act of treason when hundreds of thousands of people genuinely suffered at his hands – the Prime Minister studiously avoided mentioning Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara. In fact, he studiously avoided mentioning anyone at all who may have instigated the coup or encouraged him to act despite media speculation that he would do so.

Seriously? The entire nation now knows that Rabuka has no intention of telling the full truth abut the events of 1987 and the entire Trust and Reconciliation process is an expensive farce – underlined by the fact that its chair, Dr Marcus Brand, resigned as the Prime Minister was about to give evidence. Dr Brand gave the customary “personal reasons” for doing so – elderly family members back in Europe.

But they were elderly when he took up the job back in January and rumours have emerged that Brand was growing increasingly disillusioned with the supposed truth and reconciliation process, which was already turning into a whitewash before the Prime Minister got up at the “Truth Commission” and told a pack of lies. Or at the very least, didn’t tell the full truth.

(Go to Victor Lal‘s Fijileaks to read the full extent of those lies, including Rabuka again casting 1987 as a reaction against fears of “Indian” domination without mentioning that he removed an iTaukei prime minister in the form of Timoci Bavadra and many Fijians, especially in the West, have never forgiven him)

Ratu Tevita Mara has never given a public account of his own feelings about 1987 and the alleged role of his father. Nor has he given a detailed account of his own role in Frank Bainimarama’s coup of 2006, during which he was enough of a one of Bainimarama’s henchmen to have been obliged recently – along with his fellow former RFMF officer, Pita Driti – to issue a formal traditional apology to the victims of his human rights abuses.

Nor has Ratu Tevita given a full public explanation for having fled to Tonga when he and Driti plotted against Frank Bainimarama and Driti went to jail but Mara lived out the Bainimarama years in padded exile at the court of his relative, the then King of Tonga, who sent a naval patrol boat that violated Fijian waters to rescue him and gave him a job at the royal palace in Nuku’alofa and the ability to wait out the term of his tormentor.

It was the return of Sitiveni Rabuka that enabled Ratu Tevita to return to Fiji and escape the clutches of the now exiled substantive DPP, Christopher Pryde, who intended to arrest Mara for the outstanding charges against him and for being a fugitive who had breached his bail.

Some are convinced that this is the primary reason Christopher Pryde was removed – not for talking to Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum or alleged expenses fraud – but for preventing Mara from returning unmolested to be installed as the Tui Nayau, which duly happened with Pryde out of the way in a blatant travesty of the rule of law that would not have been afforded to any other citizen.

All of which means that Ratu Tevita has some explaining to do when he enters the political fray. But Fiji, being what it is, is a place where memories are notoriously short. We are dealing here with realpolitik – politics based on practical rather than moral or legal considerations. Ratu Tevita is now back in Fiji and installed as the High Chief of Lau in the sandals of his illustrious father and set to enter mainstream politics with a view not only to bite the hand that has fed him but take Rabuka out altogether.

The Tui Nayau has made it known privately that he has been shocked at the state of Fiji since he returned from his 13 year exile in Tonga and even that Frank Bainimarama was a better leader, at least in terms of delivering basic services and promoting national unity. One Grubsheet source quotes him as having said that the Coalition has failed to produce even one notable achievement and that the nation is headed for disaster if Rabuka wins next year’s election or the one that must be held before February 2027.

So with the ample backing of Wella Pillay and whichever other donors emerge as Mara’s momentum builds, the Tui Nayau is actively taking soundings on whether he should stand himself and in what form. And that’s where this saga gets really interesting in terms of the options available to the man who now carries the flame of his illustrious father, which alone gives him a tremendous political advantage among Fijians of all backgrounds, just as it once did for Ratu Sir Kamisese himself.

Tapping into nostalgia for the Mara era is a given. But Ratu Tevita has two difficult choices to make.

SCENARIO ONE:

Start a new political party with the backing of Wella Pillay and others and rise to national power with the support of the people of Lau, not only in the islands themselves, but the Lauan diaspora in Fiji and the rest of the world. Many of these are high achievers – as one Grubsheet source puts it – “The Indians of the iTaukei”, who have had to fight to make something of themselves and their isolated islands against the natural advantages of land mass and connectivity enjoyed by mainlanders.

As Tui Nayau and their high chief, Ratu Tevita can expect the overwhelming endorsement of Lauans in Fiji and abroad for a tilt at the national leadership. But because of his family connections, that support goes much wider. His aunt (the sister of his late mother, Ro Lady Lala Mara) is none other than Ro Teimumu Kepa – the Roko Tui Dreteki, high chief of Rewa and head of the Burebasaga Confederacy, one of Fiji’s three. So Ro Teimumu is capable of marshaling her own considerable forces in the vanua behind her nephew in the east and south of the country.

And there’s yet another advantage in Ratu Tevita’s mother having been a chief in the west before she married Ratu Sir Kamisese for the partnership that kept them both at the top of politics and the vanua in Fiji for the best part of half a century. And all this on top of Ratu Tevita’s undoubted ability to attract support from his former colleagues in the military plus the minorities of all political persuasions who remember his father’s years in power with a great deal of nostalgia, even affection, whatever Ratu Sir Kamisese’s shortcomings.

SCENARIO TWO:

It’s no surprise given this vast potential to tap into that nostalgia and the chronic dysfunction and chaos of the Coalition government under Rabuka Mark 2, that another possibility looms to put Ratu Tevita firmly on the road to national leadership and of beating Sitiveni Rabuka for the job of prime minister in 2026-27.

Grubsheet understand that the Tui Naya (Mara) is being urged by the Roko Tui Dreketi ( his aunt, Ro Teimumu Kepi) to make a determined play, with her patronage, to secure her old job as leader of SODELPA – one of the three components of the current Coalition.

That job is currently held by Aseri Radrodro – the Education Minister, “brutal” bonker of Lynda Tabuya in Room 233 and the man who almost beat his ex-wife, Sitiveni Rabuka’s daughter, to death in a domestic violence incident for which Radrodro was never brought to justice.

As Ro Teimumu evidently sees it, Radrodro is totally unfit for high office, despite his support base among the hardcore indigenous supremacists from Naitasiri, who are also his patrons in the GCC and government. And she wants Radrodro gone and her nephew, Ratu Tevita, installed in his place as SODELPA leader to take it into the next election.

For all the reasons we outlined in Scenario One, this would transform SODELPA’s prospects and even give it the political grunt to surpass the People’s Alliance as the natural home of iTaukei voters plus, potentially, members of the minorities who are already perplexed by the lack of a credible choice given their betrayal at the hands of the Coalition.

It may be that Indo-Fijians and others will never vote for SODELPA given the extremists in its ranks but they are more likely to do so if Ratu Tevita – with the backing of Ro Teimumu Kepa – holds out the prospects of a return to Mara the Elder’s blueprint of a multiracial Fiji and a sense of belonging for all.

There is still obviously a long way to go, both in this campaign and to the election whenever it is called. But the Mara name is a political brand that definitely means something in Fiji. Maybe a great deal.

Because it also includes some other big Mara names such as Adi Koila Nailatikau – the former MP who was held hostage by the George Speight gang in the parliament in 2000 and her even more illustrious husband – the former president, soldier, diplomat and friend to many non-Taukei, Ratu Epeli Nailatikau. Plus the ever lovely other Mara daughter, Adi Litia, and even a British aristocrat in the form of her husband, Harry Dugdale, the son of a baronet. Top drawer all round.

Grubsheet opined when Ratu Tevita was installed as Tui Nayau that it was perhaps time for Lau and its high chief to be”great again”. Can Lau be great again? Can Ratu Tevita carry his father’s torch into national leadership? Can Fiji as a whole be great again?

As I say, we have a long way to go. But this is all a tantalising vision for any of us who have lost hope for a better future – a genuinely competitive election next time to remove the liar and “Snake” who promised much but has squandered so much more. And to start rebuilding the vision we all had at Independence 55 years ago of a thriving, multiracial Fiji, again holding its head high in the world.

That in itself ensures that a Mara candidacy next year will be welcomed by a great many Fijians and that if Ratu Tevita can build a credible, multiracial team, he will enjoy a great deal of political goodwill. Because the nation’s degeneracy under the Coalition simply cannot go on.

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Who is Wella Pillay? For a start, once a favourite of Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum – who put him on the board of the Fiji Development Bank – and who donated tens of thousands of dollars to FijiFirst.

Which in itself tells us of the potential of a Tevita Mara campaign for prime minister to attract a much broader constituency than just the iTaukei.

Here’s Wella Pillay’s CV extracted from an annual report of the Fiji Development Bank. He has reportedly since diversified into the barge business, assisting Ratu Tevita to tackle the dire shipping shortfall in Lau.

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What we said about Ratu Tevita when he was installed as Tui Nayau.

# TIME TO BE GREAT AGAIN (UPDATED THURSDAY)

And the official reasons Dr Marcus Brand has given for abandoning his post as Chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Reports since of more pigs flying over Suva.

NOTE TO READERS:

My apologies that this doesn’t carry the usual number of illustrations.

I am surviving on cortisone injections and painkillers pending potential surgery in the new year and on doctor’s orders, will only be writing commentary on the big stories for the moment.

This is one of them, as I’m sure you’ll agree.

Vinaka.

POSTSCRIPT:

Finally a flashback to the Grubsheet archives back in 2011. I don’t know about you but to me, it feels like an eternity ago.

#25 THE KING AND I : A PACIFIC INTRIGUE