The images of Ratu Naiqama Lalabalavu‘s installation as President are stomach-churning for anyone with a sense of decency, as is the appalling hypocrisy of his inaugural address in which he said the chiefs should be “setting an example” to the Fijian people.
The example the Tui Cakau has set is one that no Fijian should follow – convicted and sent to jail for his part in the 2000 rebellion, a history of racist and misogynist statements and allegations that he had a child by a 15-year old girl.
Is that who we are as a nation, Fiji? Is that the best we can do? Is that the best that the iTaukei can offer us in terms of national leadership? What can possibly induce a President who is meant to be head of state for all Fijians to begin his term in office with a homily directed at the chiefs – the unelected elite of just one section of the population?
If anyone wonders why the nation is beset by lawlessness, drug taking and greed, it was all embodied in yesterday’s event. A convicted criminal and alleged pedophile is the best we can do for the nation’s first citizen. Ratu Naiqama is now at the apex of the state and the symbol of the Fijian nation. And what a truly f**ked up nation Fiji has become.
The popular hashtag “#notmypresident” sums up the revulsion of a great many people who are refusing to accept Ratu Naiqama as head of state. It is a disaster for national unity and a sense of self-worth for all Fijians. We have held up a mirror to ourselves and have chosen a criminal, racist, misogynist and alleged pedophile to reflect ourselves and our values.
Around the new #notmypresident yesterday were the men – yes, they are all men – who have enabled Ratu Naiqama to ascend to the nation’s top job. Grubsheet, for one, felt a sense of revulsion for all of them that they could so grievously betray the nation’s values. Or maybe that’s the point. They are now the nation’s values and those of us who don’t share them are a dwindling, marginalised minority. Those of us who are viscerally repulsed by the notion of the Tui Cakau in the nation’s top job, just as we are repulsed at having a domestic violence abuser as Education Minister or a drug-taking adulterer as Minister for Women and Children.
We expect to see Sitiveni Rabuka in these images looking pleased with himself. He blackmailed the former president, Ratu Wiliame Katonivere, into standing aside with threats to expose an audit that allegedly implicates the Tui Macuata in wrongdoing. And he shamelessly installed his own chief and patron as head of state knowing that he will be compliant and do all he can to keep Rabuka in power come the 2026 election.
As for the others paying homage to the Tui Cakau yesterday, the Commander of the RFMF, Major General Ro Jone Kalouniwai, has also betrayed the national interest – the number one bystander at repeated constitutional car crashes who shamelessly lied to his own troops when he told them that he would never allow the release of George Speight and Shane Stevens.
Then there’s the “Opposition leader”, Inia Seruiratu, who signed off on the Coalition’s scandalous emoluments increases that doubled his own salary and granted him a house. Frankly, he isn’t an opposition leader’s ****hole, failing woefully to even try to hold the government to account. Seruiratu will occasionally opine that something is wrong but soon falls into compliant silence. And most voters have come to realise that he is a total waste of space.
And then, perhaps sadder than all the others, there is the Roman Catholic Archbishop, Peter Loy Chong – the Pope’s representative in Fiji – whose mere presence excuses the inexcusable. Archbishop Loy Chong was a vocal critic of the Bainimarama government but has anyone heard him say anything about the excesses of the Coalition? Not a peep. And no surprise when those around him in the Catholic flock include some of the Coalition’s biggest supporters such as Pio Tikoduadua, Netani Rika and Matt Wilson.
Does the Archbishop not have a problem with an alleged pedophile as President? Oh, silly me. I’m forgetting the appalling record of the Roman Catholic Church in dealing with child abusers in its own ranks. Belated apologies and millions in compensation only after the media spotlight was shone on the nether regions of the world’s biggest Christian denomination. And after many years in which young people suffered the most appalling abuse.
The Archbishop seems to have lost sight of a basic truth that underpins all Christian teachings. That Jesus Christ led by example. And if Fiji is in the throes of a moral crisis – and everyone is saying so, from teachers to community leaders – then it may be because religious leaders like him are prepared to sit with a straight face while a monster like Ratu Naiqama Lalabalavu lectures others about “leading by example”.
Was yesterday’s installation of the new President easily one of the lowest points in our tortured national journey since Independence? Is the Pope a Catholic?
A blatantly political sermon by the Roman Catholic Archbishop and for all the wrong reasons. A great deal about what was wrong in the past but nothing about what is wrong now. “God’s justice”? The Archbishop is deluded.
A gaggle of the supposedly great and good in Fiji turning a blind eye to the history of new President. A reminder of what we reported before he was chosen by a majority of MPs and most scandalously, with the support of Biman Prasad and the NFP.
It isn’t as if there wasn’t a more respectable alternative, even if the choice of president is confined to the nation’s high chiefs.
Meanwhile across the world in a civilised nation…
Just looking at the picture of the President walking alongside the Commander RFMF is almost appalling. Don’t know who they hired as his tailor but it all seems shabby. So you have a chief, instructing chiefs in his shabby long pants.
Naiqama says “when you’re a chief, you should be leading and setting examples to your people…”
So, being a pedophile, racist, corrupt, sexist and misogynist individual is the example that he is leading with? And, he expects his followers to do the same?
With all the pieces on the chessboard now in the right place, Rabuka is set to easily win the next election. Even the SoE is compromised so anyone thinking the next election will be free and fair is probably taking the same drugs flowing freely throughout Fiji these days.
Like the filthy smog which envelopes people in India and China, choking their every breath, Fiji is being choked from the inside by the people who were elected to clean it up. Those in power are rats spreading their filthy ways like the plague.
Nothing short of an extermination of the filthy animals can cleanse the democracy of the country.
Got a current passport? Get out while you can. Rabuka has got his pawns in place, his nationalist agenda will now be completed.
He has the backing of
1. His chief
2. His admirer, Bonker and Weed eater
3. His lame Tele tubby army commander
4. His crooked coalition deputy PM, Biman the Betrayer.
That’s all he needed. Well done boys!!!
Agree with you, Fijians get out as soon as you get the opportunity. Fiji has gone to the dogs.
It hurts seeing our beloved country go this way. What did we do to deserve these pathetic leaders?
How can all Fijians get out of the country. People who say that must have very small brains, no? Just like they had small brains to vote these shitheads into government.
Small brains definitely voted for Rabuka. The big brains all getting out of Fiji.
If Rabuka can give the biggest ministry to a person who beat his own daughter to within an inch of her life, giving a position to a pedophile who abused a disabled girl is a no-brainer.
All of this just so that he can stay in power at any cost.He was threatened by the pedo into appointing him to the position and he succumbed. He threatended the previous President to stand down. The man is a narcissist and a pretender. The true character of the man speaks for itself. Why the people of Fiji were so exuberant at the last election I fail to understand. He can go lower than a snake’s belly.
Fijians must all be blind, deaf and dumb. They are the biggest dumbos on the planet, no doubt in my mind. Fiji is being run by the iTaukei mafia and there are no standards in the country any longer.
The Archbishop in the pic with the two imbeciles seems to be saying “hey all, look at me, I feel so good to be in the company of pedos”. Catholic priests have a history of feeling good amongst pedos. So the Archbishop is keeping up with well established tradition.
Peter Loy, how fuc&king disgraceful!
Yesterday, the New Zealand Prime Minister offered a national apology to the victims of abuse in state care. The Catholic Church was part of this abuse in New Zealand and Fiji.
Peter needs to learn to keep away from men who abuse children and women and not be seen as the friend of these abusers.
I hope the Pope’s office is seeing this shitshow roll all over again to tarnish the image of the Catholic Church once again in Fiji. They are the new right wing abuser movement. How disgraceful and disgusting.
Met a Fijian i-taukei woman in Australia yesterday.
She is from Cakaudrove.
She was so disgusted by the Prime Minister and the new President.
Isn’t it interesting that their own are totally in disgust of their leaders I thought. Well, she was a more educated woman who has worked abroad and provided for family home all these years. Her one sentence summed it up, “all my nephews and nieces are well educated and only 3 are now in Fiji because I made sure they get out and work overseas.”
That’s a brainy aunty I thought. A wise one too.
BIRDS OF A FEATHER
The Archbishop gets a seat next to the new president. How fitting is that. The leader of the Catholic church, an outfit so mired in paedophilia and covered up by their big daddy in Rome.
Shamima Ali’s benefactors need to re-examine their funding. Shamima is always there when you don’t need her.
Where is she now ?!?!
To be fair to Shamima Ali, she opposed his appointment. FYI, many critics have gone quiet because of the intimidation on social media from Naiqama Lalabalavu’s supporters.
Fear and intimidation is the norm with this government and its supporters.
Speaking out against this government means one of the following will happen:
– you are charged on some trumped up allegations and sent to prison
– you and/or your family are physically abused (no one will be charged)
– you are raped (no one will believe you when you try to press charges)
– you are abused on social media (no one will be charged despite Fiji claiming it has laws to counter this)
– you are blamed instead for any misfortune that befalls you.
As they say… men, men, and more men. Speaker of the House, President, Prime Minister and the dropkicks just keep rolling in.
Where are the women’s rights and champions now? Where are the rainbow flag bearers at? Why so quiet and no say now? You all had lots to say about Frank and ASK. Now you got the clown poos in house.
This is the change by choice.
And Biman Prasad is conveniently absent from the swearing in ceremony.
He is at COP 29 flying the flag for Fiji. A delegation of 56 when Papua New Guinea chose to send no-one because it is a “waste of time”. And especially now that the US is going to withdraw from the COP process and there is zero chance of adequate climate action.
But Biman had to be there. The snake in disguise. Smiling away as if he cares about Fiji anymore.
Won’t be long before he is escorted to prison for his nonsense and non disclosure on land purchases.
Rabuka and cohorts will continue to “liberate” the indigenous from the suppression of their rights and aspirations by the previous administration and by non ratification of a UN ILO169 Convention. What ever.
Not sure how or what i taukei aspirations and rights were and are still “suppressed “. Must be complaining about the rights to live as savages and uncivilized as it was prior to British administration.
And the irony that those whose conspiracy views deem the UN an evil axis of power selectively ramble on about the benefits to the indigenous of a UN resolution!
A reminder again of the parable of the talents and the parable of Rabuka’s GPH dinner for his team: If I don’t use it, I will lose it! So utilise the land and other natural resources, but if you exercise your indigenous rights to let it be overgrown with paragrass then don’t complain. No amount of legislation will open the tap of free money from the skies.
Not my Bishop thank you.
When he was a vocal critic of the Bainimarama administration and his silence now somewhat confirms to me that what I suspected then in his commentary against Fiji First was that his personal political / or nationalistic views against Bainimarama and Aiyaz were concealed in his so called social justice messages. I have come across folk who have got the order of hierarchy lopsided to what it might appear: Indigenous gods, culture and race takes precedence over introduced religion (Catholic or Christian) and other ethnicities.
So is it clay that the Bishop’s feet are made of and not solid material that will collapse and take others down with him. His ultimate master and Lord will adjudicate.
A nation lead and mentored by misogynists who can only think with their little head, fund life with a hands out beggar mentality, and turn a blind eye to corruption that lines the pockets of politicians.
Only yesterday one of Spain’s (if not THE) largest drug busts had Fiji labels all over the packages. Only in Fiji.
The Catholic Church has men who are abusers and molesters themselves.
Join the pedo party 🥳
Join the pedo party 🎉
Join the pedo party 🎈
Yay.
#notmypresident
Well analyzed, GD. Fiji faces deepening challenges that demand immediate attention. The country is slipping backwards under the current leadership.
Rabuka is a figure rooted in Fiji’s divisive history, having initiated the coup culture and racism that have disrupted the nation for decades. Despite the controversial past, including policies that alienated Indo Fijians, he remains in power with the help of Biman and his NFP and another minority and racist party SODELPA, which raises concerns about Fiji’s commitment to unity and justice. The much talked about Truth and Reconciliation Commission, ironically led by a weak Indo Fijian assistant minister, who has failed to raise her voice for Indo Fijians, is the greatest farce.
Equally troubling is the appointment of the new President with a history of criminal conviction, including imprisonment and suspension from parliament for making misogynist comments. Naiqama has used his chiefly status cunningly to secure his position. His reliance on GCC in future as a political shield suggests a regression to governance based on ethnic hierarchy, which many citizens silently recognise as backward and divisive.
Fiji’s judiciary, once a beacon of integrity, now faces questions of independence due to irregular appointments to top positions, including Acting CJ, Acting DPP, and FICAC Commissioner. Coalition goverment is using such positions and others to take revenge against the previous government and save the current ministers from being charged for alleged crimes. The procedures for these appointments appear compromised – underming public trust in the rule of law.
Despite promises of media freedom, the majority of Fiji’s press fails to challenge the government, with Fiji Sun being a rare exception. Programs like “Straight Talk” lack balanced scrutiny, focusing instead on the past government. Some journalists and vocal critics including overseas based bloggers that were critical of the previous government are now silent as they align with the current regime. Where are the likes of Wadan Narsey and Richard Naidu who never missed an opportunity to criticize the previous government?
International partners like Australia and New Zealand pursue their own interests under the guise of support. Skilled professionals, trades people, and unskilled workers alike are leaving Fiji – whether through the PALM scheme or independently, causing labour shortages across all sectors. This drain forces Fiji to import labour while Australia and New Zealand gain from our diminishing work force, weakening Fiji’s economy and future investment prospects.
Fij’s current trajectory points to a worrying erosion of its democratic and economic foundations.
Australia and NZ are milking Fiji’s fall right now. Their aid is nothing compared to the workforce they are taking for life. No amount of aid will replace what Fiji is losing right now.
Happened in all coups. It’s happening again now.
Fiji must strengthen training, the institutes, the employers with otj and empower the young, to be qualified, experienced then sync this to the so called ‘brain drain’. In time Fiji can have ‘expat’ Fijians with international experience on expat contracts.
Is it me, or does this reply read like an AI generated response?
Yes, haven’t you noticed that all my articles have also been generated by artificial intelligence? Do you honestly think I’d be so stupid as to write them myself?
Chat GPT was likely commenting on a previous post in the thread, not yours Graham!
Sometimes the thread comments and replies don’t follow on sequence and then it is difficult to associate the reply to the relevant original comment.
Yes sorry Graham. I was commenting in response to a comment by Daniel Richard’s which read like he had copied and pasted all of your articles into chat GPT and then asked it to summarise them. He’s done the same thing on your latest post too.
With all due respect, Grahame, this is who you advocated for. You are part of the group who enabled this. Perhaps stop pointing fingers and do a bit of self reflection.
Are you blind, as well as mad? Show me where and when I ever proposed the Tui Cakau to be head of state. I didn’t and everyone except you knows it.
What happened to Kepa?
Where did the political coalition Sodelpa agreement reach?
No Kepa for Madam President 😂
Sitiveni made him the president so that if Sitiveni loses in the 2026 election, the president will intervene and make Sitiveni the prime minister again.
Rabuka is working out of Mugabe’s handbook. Mugabe went from liberator to dictator. Rabuka is no different. The itaukei thought, and still thinks, that he’s their liberator from the oppression of the vulagi. One thing that they are unwilling to learn from history is that nationalist liberators quickly turn to become dictators when their grip on power loosens.
Beware itaukei, what you think you will get, is very different from what you will eventually end up with. Zimbabwe went bust as a result of the extreme policies of the nationalist agenda of Mugabe. Fiji will travel the same exact way with Rabuka’s nationalist agenda. Beware also fellow itaukei; Mugabe said that only God could remove him. Don’t be fooled by the references to God and holy scripture that Rabuka and his cronies will cough up from time to time.
Be aware fellow itaukei, learn from the many lessons of history and don’t give into this absolutely morally corrupt cartel that is now the government. Their plan and pathway is doom for our beloved Fiji.
I must say I was taken aback by Archbishop Choy’s tacit endorsement of the new President’s credentials through his active participation in the event. I had come to admire and respect the Head of the Catholic church for his candid and fearless advocacy of the rights of the marginalised, poor and vulnerable speaking for justice and human values.
I now detect a sense of hypocrisy and compromising one’s principles to be part of the inner power circle. I guess even religious leaders are, after all, human!
A significant percent of fijian religious leaders have always been arch ethno nationalist racist. Loy is no exception. The love of power and money cloaked under false humility deceptively hide the bigotry to fool the masses.
Your money is welcome, so continue to give freely, shut up, and move on.