June 20: The international community has welcomed Fiji’s military government’s effort to conduct national election and the efforts to install a democratic setup in the country.
Yesterday, the interim cabinet of the country announced parliamentary elections to be conducted in the first quarter of the year 2009. The United States of America and Australia has welcomed this decision and have agreed to provide all kinds of technical and financial assistance for holding the election.
Meanwhile, the Fiji military has warned Australia for not sending any peacekeeping troops and if so then can be termed as an invasion and will be treated so. However, no further detail is available regarding this specific development.
After the dissolution of Fijian government in 1987 and the declaration of republic, the military is either ruling directly or influencing the central government a lot.
The year long political instability is due to the conflict between ethnic Fijian and Indian Fijian; a religious conflict between the Methodist Church (followed by ethnic Fijian) and Indian Hindus. Whenever military took the charge, in early 1987, 2000 or the last 2006, the majority of ethnic Fijian demanded more rights.
However, the interest of ethnic Fijian has not always been the same with Fijian military as the proposal of declaring Fiji a Christian state was not supported by the 2006 military commander and the current Prime Minister Bainimarama.
The situation became tense last year after military leader commodore Bainimarama dissolved the parliament and took over the power as president and later in Jan 2007 named the interim Prime Minister. But following the political unrest the Commonwealth nation suspended Fiji’s status that later brought many restriction on the state. Again last month’s expel of top New Zealand diplomat Michael Green by Fiji has also brought criticism from the international community. This has put on tremendous pressure on the military rule to create atmosphere for restoring democracy.
Hopefully this effort would help in restoring normalcy in the south pacific region. As a number of sanctions have been imposed including the United States and EU, this attempt will further assist in economic development of the island. Though international community has welcomed the decision but it’s been a long time for the election and in between all members of the South Pacific Forum and the International Community as a whole has a lot to do in terms of diplomatic exchanges with Fijian authority.
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