# THE CONSTITUTION AMENDMENT BILL IS NOW DEAD IN THE WATER AFTER SODELPA AND THE NFP WITHDRAW THEIR SUPPORT

“Bill on brink of collapse” screams today’s Sunday Times front page after SODELPA joined the NFP in saying it will not back the third reading of the parliamentary bill that is the only way Fiji will have a new constitution by Christmas. Or any other time for that matter.

The collapse of solidarity among the three governing parties just one week away from the vote is a disaster for the Prime Minister, Sitiveni Rabuka. It means that the current bill isn’t for a new people’s constitution but a People’s Alliance Party constitution. And unless Rabuka can persuade individual members of SODELPA and the NFP to rat on their respective parties to vote for the bill, it is doomed.

A “no” vote on the third reading will again be the end of the process – just as it was in March 2025 – because the PM’s can’t get the required two-thirds majority. There will be no constitutional change (for the moment), no referendum and the 2013 Constitution will remain in place. Which Rabuka’s Coalition partners have decided is preferable to a flawed document being rushed into law.

Of course, for SODELPA and the NFP, the document is flawed for different reasons. For SODELPA, the draft constitution doesn’t go far enough in meeting the demands of its grassroots for stronger measures to reinforce the position of the iTaukei. While the NFP’s objections mirror those of most civil society groups in demanding more time for a national debate instead of the Fijian people being rushed into a vote that suits the PAP.

Now that SODELPA has pulled the plug on its support for the Bill, the Prime Minister is in a terrible bind. Because he faces the nightmare scenario in which SODELPA casts itself in the election lead-up as the true warrior for indigenous rights and iTaukei voters abandon the People’s Alliance en masse.

Here’s the thing, Fiji. What happens if SODELPA goes into the coming election accusing the PAP of selling out the interests of the iTaukei? That’s precisely what some people think is the best way for SODELPA to drive a truck through Sitiveni Rabuka’s traditional support base and take a lot more SODELPA MPs into the next parliament than its current three.

For its part, the NFP now realises that its best tactic isn’t to go along with Rabuka’s constitutional plan but oppose it on the basis that the whole process is being rushed and the nation is being railroaded by the Prime Minister and his PAP colleagues into a supreme law that is flawed and at the very least deserves more consideration.

If he wants to avert humiliation in the parliament and the country, Sitiveni Rabuka needs to heed the calls for next week’s vote to be dropped. Let’s face it. The entire process has been a debacle – including the forced resignation of Siromi Turaga – the cabinet minister with principal carriage of the Bill – because of yet another PAP sex video scandal.

Yet it also now includes ordinary Fijians complaining that far from the review process being adequate, they are being cut off in mid-sentence at rushed consultation sessions before they can even properly express their views on the new draft. And that is political poison.

None of it is going to fly and the best course of action is for Rabuka and the PAP to preserve its already frayed electoral position, rather than bleed further support, by kicking the entire constitutional process into touch. Yes, drop all notion of constitutional change until the bases are properly covered, hold the coming election on schedule and revisit the issue in the next parliament.

For the Prime Minister, it is clearly better to live to fight another day rather than lose next week’s vote. Because if that happens, it will be his second big fail in trying to jettison the 2013 Constitution. And his mana – along with that of the PAP – will be trashed just when he and his colleagues are about subject themselves to the judgment of the people.

What Rabuka must do is obvious to anyone with any strategic political nous. But is it obvious to someone who is now openly conceding that at 78, he isn’t as sharp as he once was?

Dear oh dear. Talk about clinging to the wreckage. In every sense.

A rebellion from most sections of civil society as well.