The Defence Minister reveals his behind-the-scenes role in opposing the declaration of a state of emergency in Fiji in a candid interview with The Australian newspaper that points to tensions within the government over the extent of the RFMF’s participation in the drug fight.
In a lengthy article today by the paper’s Asia Pacific correspondent, Amanda Hodge, the NFP’s most senior member of the Coalition now that its leader, BIman Prasad, faces trial for corruption claims credit for keeping the military at bay.
QUOTE: “I got the army back to barracks. Why do you think I’m so resistant to bring them out again?”
The Defence Minister acknowledges the existential threat to Fiji of the drug trade but argues that a whole-of-society response is needed and the current joint military-police task force is sufficient “right now” to deal with the crisis.
Pio Tikoduadua‘s participation in The Australian‘s report is in sharp contrast to his NFP colleague – the Deputy Foreign Minister, Lenora Qereqeretabua – who the paper says declined multiple requests for interviews after her son-in-law, Jonathon Hill, was granted immunity by the ODPP to testify against some of the “big fish” of the drug trade.
With the NFP in disarray as the forthcoming trial of Biman Prasad poses an existential threat to its electoral standing, what are its iTaukei stars – Tikoduadua and Qereqeretabua – going to do? Will they defect to the People’s Alliance (or another party)? Or as Qereqeretabua has evidently indicated, leave politics altogether?
Decision time for both is fast approaching. But in the meantime, Pio Tikoduadua seems keen to emphasise his own role in keeping the military from having a wider role, which suggests a desire to establish a point of difference with his Coalition colleagues and fight on.
Fiji on the front pages in Australia again for all the wrong reasons:
Plus the whole of Page 12:
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