It is now eleven days since Sitiveni Rabuka received a detailed report from the Peoples Alliance disciplinary committee confirming allegations that Lynda Tabuya engaged in illicit sex and drug- taking on an official parliamentary visit to Melbourne last August.
The evidence against Tabuya was overwhelming enough for the Executive Council of the Party to strip her of her position as the PAP’s deputy leader. But still the Prime Minister can’t decide whether she should be stripped of her cabinet post as Minister for Women, Children and Social Protection. Or as Grubsheet describes it, the Minister for Bonking and Weed.
How long is this nonsense going to go on? Clearly until the Prime Minister’s position becomes as untenable as that of his pet Minister. And that time is already upon us as the story that was once the preserve of Fijileaks and Grubsheet takes hold in the local media in Fiji and starts to cause the Coalition serious electoral damage. It is already a public relations nightmare judging from the flood of negative comments in these columns that now also starting to appear in the mainstream media in Fiji.
Yesterday, Grubsheet called the Prime Minister a “pissant prevaricator” for not being able to see that he has no choice but to sack Lynda Tabuya given the gravity of what his own party’s investigation has revealed about her “brutal” sex with her fellow minister, Aseri Radrodro, and her consumption of “weed” – marijuana – in a foreign hotel room on official business. Doubtless this is water off a duck’s back for Sitiveni Rabuka because he doesn’t think Grubsheet matters. But when one of the two daily newspapers in Fiji takes up the issue, it matters a great deal. And he simply cannot afford to ignore the Fiji Sun’s campaign to force his hand.
It goes up a notch today with another hard-hitting editorial by Naisa Koroi, whose editorial last week describing Lynda Tabuya as a “straight-faced liar” and calling for her removal incensed the Minister to the point that she forced another Fiji Sun reporter to leave a news conference she had convened for International Women’s Day. But Naisa Koroi is not easily intimidated into silence. And he turns up the blowtorch with another editorial today (Tuesday) targeting the Prime Minister for his indecision in dealing with what most other Fijians already know urgently has to be done.
Rather than follow Grubsheet’s lead in “dissing” the PM as a “pissant prevaricator” – though that’s what he is – the Fiji Sun makes “a call for resolution”, saying “decisive action is needed by Sitiveni Rabuka to safeguard the government’s integrity”.
“What is it going to be Mr Prime Minister? Last Friday is was about following the so-called Minister’s Code of Conduct ( which Grubsheet speculated must have been changed to allow for illicit sex and drugs on ministerial visits abroad). “Then yesterday it was looking at the credibility of the evidence presented. Sir, please make a decision and move on!”
Amen to that. “The credibility of the evidence?” Come on Prime Minister. Your own disciplinary committee, including two lawyers – one of them your relative, Filimoni Vosarogo, the Minister for Lands – has told you that the evidence is credible. It found the allegations proven. The text messages and images accessed from Aseri Radrodro’s phone that were sent to him by Lynda Tabuya aren’t “fake” – as even the Minister herself has stopped claiming. They are genuine. The two had “brutal” sex in Room 233 of the Windsor Hotel in Melbourne and Lynda Tabuya referred to having “plenty of weed” and “getting high and drunk” on Jack Daniels whiskey. It’s all there in the text messages that we’re again publishing below to remind everyone of the gravity of this scandal.
It was certainly enough to persuade the PAP Executive Council to remove her as deputy party leader. Incredibly, Prime Minister, you now say that is a matter for them, the Council members, not you, the Party Leader. Give us a break. We were stupid enough to believe your pre-election promises that you would restore integrity to government but this is too much. Way too much.
It is axiomatic that when the Executive Council of the Party has accepted the recommendation from your own disciplinary committee that the evidence is genuine and that Lynda Tabuya is not a fit and proper person to be deputy leader that she is also not a fit and proper person to be Minister for Women, Children and Social Protection. And the notion that that is them and you are you and some other standard of proof applies is just making a joke of the PAP and the entire Coalition.
Last year, you wanted to make Filimoni Vosarogo attorney general in your aborted reshuffle. Are you saying that he and the other members of the disciplinary committee have got it wrong? Did they come up with a finding that you don’t accept? Prime Minister, even Lynda Tabuya has stopped denying that the allegations against her are true. Are you seriously contemplating keeping her in the cabinet? Because if you do, you have lost all credibility and so has the gaggle of appeasers and enablers around you.
You no longer have the nation on your side in wanting to save Lynda Tabuya from herself. So as the Fiji Sun says: Get on with it. Make the decision that needs to be made and move on.
POSTSCRIPT: Does anyone know if the government ever hired a reputable public relations company to handle its affairs? They issued a tender for it but Grubsheet has never seen an official announcement that anyone has been engaged.
All I can say as the previous government’s media advisor through Qorvis from 2012 to 2018 is that we would have told Sitiveni Rabuka that he is burning political capital at an unsustainable rate and the only way to put out the fire of public indignation is to cut Lynda Tabuya loose. But maybe he has just stopped listening.
What generally happens next in these things is a leadership coup or eventually an election defeat. Because in politics, having a tin ear on scandals of this magnitude is usually fatal.
“Beware the Ides of March”, the fortune teller famously told Julius Caesar in Shakespeare’s play of the same name. He didn’t listen either. Qori. A rain of daggers in the back.
Karma is a bitch SLT says
PM SLT is like the Trump of the Pacific. Trump exaggerated his wealth. SLT exaggerated his streak of not delivering on any promises. Nothing. Well if GCC is the only measure than that’s laughable. They have wasted half a million dollars on 2 days of gathering only and achieved nothing but acting Ratu’s and Adi’s. I hope in doing all this Fiji doesn’t lose its credibility of what a village and district growth means. The chiefs have been the looters for years while the ones lower in the caste remain poor. We can add Biman to the list of these looters. No one needs Girmit Day or Girmit Day commemoration. Another holiday to make him and his wife with their friends look important and fill their pockets. Team of abusers and users.
PM SLT needs to go. There is word out that there is internal leadership coup that might happen soon. This has been inevitable given the lack of leadership qualities of SLT.
As for the bonking Delilah and Habibi’s wife, she needs to simply leave. Cannot hear her talk about poverty anymore. She used to be the circus while in opposition doing everything to persuade people that i-taukei live in poverty, the health sector is in crisis, etc. Now what? Flying around on tax payer funds and abusing priviledges. Same goes for all the Minister’s in this Coalition. No one wants to see your teitei or how much layalaya you folks drink in your fancy wine and champagne glasses. Cut the fu#king crap out and do some real work. You get paid by us, the taxpayers. We don’t pay you to tell us how to plant freaking cabbages and cassava!
I-Taukei voted with their hearts. Now they can learn to vote with their brains. Just learn. All this ignorance in leadership, vamalua and va murimuri behavior is costing the nation a political suicide.
Karma is a bitch after all SLT. The cries of the Fijians in 1987 have come home to haunt that Parliament and it is there to stay this time. All the best. This Coalition is the slow death of PAP. Enjoy the priviledges because it will be time to collect bottles again very soon for the racist mostly i-taukei Coalition.
Lol says
Rudderless government headed by a rudderless leader. Another minister of the coalition making headlines for the wrong reasons, this time the coalition’s AG. When a government loses its moral footing it will be a matter of time before the nation heads into total chaos… and the kaboom. Come on PM make a decision! This is not going away anytime soon as you hope.
Parliament a brothel now says
Tabuya and SLT,
You both do not represent us.
You don’t represent the women and girls of Fiji.
Stand down now.
You both have lost all credibility and confidence.
Rabuka – you are not my PM simply because you have shown that it is ok to have illicit sexual affairs and use narcotics in a Coalition and that is fine by your standards. You should be managing this place and upholding the laws and constitution of Fiji with due respect. Instead, you run the place like a village brothel. It’s grossly yuck! Vomit material.
Get out. Tuba. Time to go.
From,
Majority of women in Fiji.
Worried Fijian says
Lynda bought and slept herself up to the top. Simply put. And she will continue to do that because it is in her political DNA.
That is why she is the major finacier for PAP party and she has allegedly slept with the PM too. The lasa-i-tuba is her only smarts.
Are Fijians that poor in terms of intelligence and morals now that they can get swayed by fancy dresses, go go glasses, and not sounding eloquent English? I am asking my fellow i-taukei people here.
What is it that we cannot see in this Queen Bonking Minister?
She is literally the worst woman leader in Fiji. Or show me worse.
We, the i-taukei, have fallen because we have allowed this woman a platform for such acts. It is equally our fault. We need to unfollow her and stop praising her. She is not your godly soul nor a role model for our daughters.
Grow up you gullible people.
She doesn’t care about you all.
She is all about power.
Family in crisis says
How does her family face the world everyday?
If she had an ounce of integrity she would have stood down already.
What it shows here is that as a family only power matters to them.
They will sell anything to keep their mother and wife baited out as long as they stay in power and they reap the money in.
Lynda, you have lost the plot.
Jiloma. Ciqoma. Get off the high horse. Leave.
The Parliament doors are wide open for you and Aseri to leave.
Fjord Sailor says
I wonder if Rabuka has realised that removing Tabuya could mean political death for him and his band of lecherous, gluttonous drunkards. Removing Aseri was one thing. Removing Tabuya could have disatrous results.
The party is in power simply by a whisker and all it needs is two people to cross the floor and vote from the other side to bring down the whole government. Perhaps silence is golden in this case and Rabuka will be the ostrich with his head buried in the soil, pretending he knows nothing.
It only remains for the President to realize the untenable situation this has created and sack the government. The PM is clearly unable to command his team and has lost control as he is ignored by far and large by his own ministers who seem to be making decisions in different directions.
To preseve the peace and the dignity of Fiji’s democracy, the president must:
1. Dismiss the current government
2. Appoint a caretaker government which excludes any member of the current government
3. Call for new elections (and a new elections supervisor)
4. Ensure the Police have sufficient backing to protect national security. The Comm. RFMF to be directed to aid the Police in providing support for any planned civil unrests.
Just ridiculous says
PISSANT PREVARICATOR – I had to look it up. No truer words have been said about the PM ever before.
What you looking at? says
Remember LT eating a plane on her TikTok self-promoting videos during COVID? Now she is travelling on the same planes to her drug-fuelled brutal sex romps.
It is not hypocrisy, it is what makes her an ideal candidate to be the next and the first female PM. The people love her and how God-fearing she is. Just ask Shamima.
LT hypocrite says
Lynda- the only issue that’s baffling is that a person of your “caliber” could dare quote scripture at all in Parliment.
Considering everything that you do in secret which is not only against the law but against biblical principles. That’s laughable,
You hypocrite! LOL
Tabuya - Trump says
Tabuya and Shamima are using Trump lingo, saying this is “ unfair.”
No matter what trump does he accuses others of witch-hunts, his disdain for women while he womanised them all the while over the years.
He is a narcissist with same victim mentality and almost child like in his words and intellect.
No Confidence says
This Kama Sutra Minister should immediately be sent packing. I find it so unbelievable that she has no ounce of shame.
She seems to have the PM by the balls.
After her scandal making it to world news she has the audacity to show her face at official events and in parliament.
I must also remark the opposition is so weak. They seek no accountability from the PM.
You all should just vacate your seats and have the young blood lead the country. I have no confidence in any of you. Hopeless bunch
Jezebel snake eyes says
Sinful eyes.
Mata va shonty.
Unprincipled and should have resigned immediately when demoted by party.
Shameless woman.
Not the biblical virtuous woman whose worth is far more than rubies.
We deserve better Viti!