The Rabuka government enters the week of the special parliamentary sitting on Tuesday to table its new draft constitution facing almost universal opposition to its plan to rush it into force on Christmas Eve.
A range of political parties including the formal Opposition in the parliament and the government’s own coalition partner – the NFP – have joined forces with civil society groups and even powerful elements of the Great Council of Chiefs to reject the Prime Minister’s timetable.
The following is from the Rewa high chief, Ro Naulu Mataitini – the Vunivalu of Nukunitabua – who has emerged in recent months as the GCC’s public intellectual and principal advocate.
As such, he is bound to be reflecting majority opinion among the chiefs.
It is an extraordinary rebellion – the sudden formation of a Coalition of the Unwilling – which already means the government is highly unlikely to be able to secure the support it needs to have the new constitution in place by Christmas. That means its plan for the coming election to be delayed until a new electoral system in place is also doomed.
The tidal wave of opposition is coming even before we learn what the new draft supreme law contains. So if the reports are true that it includes measures that disadvantage the minorities such as the abolition of the secular state, the government’s problems are only just beginning.
The ineptness of the Prime Minister and his People’s Alliance colleagues in leaving constitutional change to the very end of their four-year term has come back to bite them in spectacular fashion. Changing the constitution was meant to be the jewel in the crown of its re-election effort. Yet instead it can’t even get chiefs of the statue of Ro Naulu Mataitini to buy into its program.
We now know that the reports last week that Sitiveni Rabuka sent his iTaukei Affairs, Ifereimi Vasu, to ask the GCC to back his plan to delay the election but was rebuffed are almost certainly true.
So are the reports of opposition from SODELPA – Rabuka’s other Coalition partner – and other high chiefs such as former SODELPA leader Ro Teimumu Kepa, the Roko Tui Dreketi and head of the Burebasaga Confederacy – the largest of the three – who command vast support among iTaukei in the vanua.
What’s the main sticking point among those who broadly support a new constitution, among other things, to enshrine the power of the chiefs in the supreme law? That Rabuka wants to delay the election until a new electoral system is in place. And that could take a year or more as new constituency boundaries are created, which would mean the Prime Minister extending his term in office by at least another year to five years or more.
That just isn’t on, not only for the other political parties, the broad sweep of civil society and prominent opinion-makers but also those elements among the iTaukei majority he needs on side to make any changes at all.
As we said during the week: “Fasten your seat belts, Fiji, we’re in for one hell of a ride”. Yet Grubsheet would never have imagined then just how widespread the revolt against the Prime Minister would prove to be. And that’s even before we get to see precisely what changes to the 2013 Constitution are envisaged when the new draft constitution is tabled in the parliament on Tuesday.
The Prime Minister, in characteristic fashion, has bungled the biggest initiative of his term, assisted by the sheer incompetence of his Acting Attorney General, Siromi Turaga, and the likes of the Solicitor General, Ropate Green Lomavatu.
Not only is the passage of the new constitution already a debacle but we still don’t even have a Referendum Act ready to facilitate a national vote on the new proposals “in November or early December” before the constitution is meant to come into force on December 24. That’s assuming, of course, that the Prime Minister can gain the support of two-thirds of the parliament to even be able to take it to the people, which is now also doubtful.
As we’ve observed before, these people are incapable of organising a village bazaar. Or a “f**k in a brothel”, as one Grubsheet reader colourfully observed. They have been so inept by leaving their run to the last moment that the clock has simply run out on any prospect of the Christmas Constitution – the “Kirisimasi Constitution”, as Ro Mataitini calls it.
Their arrogance means they didn’t even bother to check with their own supporters as to whether they would back a delayed election. And now the formation of a broad-based Coalition of the Unwilling threatens their entire agenda even before the more contentious parts of the new constitution become public and inevitably trigger a further outcry.
All of which means that the Prime Minister’s rendezvous with destiny by the end of the first week in February – the last possible date for the election if the 2013 Constitution remains in place – is already inescapable. He will face the judgment of the people whether he likes it or not or face their wrath. And the way things are going, probably both.
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First the joint statement from civil society, including prominent opinion-makers such as Vani Catanisiga, Shamima Ali and Nilesh Lal.
Then the Facebook article by Rewa High Chief Ro Naulu Mataitini –
Some mainstream news coverage that underlines the broadbased opposition to the Prime Minister’s plans…
The Labour Party underlines its status as the principal opposition outside the parliament with a withering attack on both the Prime Minister on the constitution and the Chief Justice over the theft of cocaine from the High Court. (see our previous article).
And finally, a Grubsheet “must see”…
Good job compiling and collating these in one consumption for the lazy Fijian, Vakanuinui vinaka saka GD.
So the message is clear from the Vanua and vast Viti- it is time for you to rest in peace Rabuka- one elected term was all you get as PM.
Undoubtedly, it is time for your successor. Let there be a new coalition come 2027 with 3 newer PMs that can be on a rotational basis- yep, we can amend the constitution in the coming years to allow this brain gain of an idea that Feejee very desperately needs.
Let me the first, to thank you for your service in advance, Rabuka. And, if we don’t see you again,
good afternoon, good evening, and good night (Truman, 1998, available on Netflix- must watch as it put Fiji on the world map).
Rabuka and his clowns were so in their own heads about prolonging their own power that they didn’t even read the room.
Thankfully the true wisdom, that we all feared was being submerged, is rising in Fiji to put the brakes on this sinister and impulsively executed plan.
Give Rabuka enough rope and he not only hangs himself, but shoots himself in the foot simultaneously.
Let us not hold our breath.
Rabuka is not a ‘snake’ for nothing. His backflips, slipperiness, untrustworthiness and connivance has no bounds.
Wait for him to ‘buy back’ Biman Prasad and NFP by rewarding him with DPM and MOF and maybe the Labour Industrial Relations portfolios to NFP. Of course the GCC is behoven to his goodwill and all the blatant bias and support he has been giving to i-taukei institutions will not amount to nothing. He may even create more lucrative positions, such as board/diplomatic positions for the many MPs and other cronies now resigned to their fate.
If Trump can offer $10,000 to each voter in the US for returning Republicans to power, what would stop Rabuka offering $1000 for every desperate Fijian voter so that he can cling onto power. Of course big brother Australia is waiting with an open check book, under Vuvale, to retain its ‘trusted’ Pacific leader.
Because it would cost about five hundred million!
Hopefully not another er sorry moment that people let him get away with!