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Fiji given final election deadline
Sydney Morning Herald - August 2, 2009
Belinda Tasker – Fiji will be tossed out of the Commonwealth if it fails to commit within a month to holding democratic elections next year.
Commonwealth ministers meeting in London on Friday spent seven hours debating whether to immediately suspend Fiji amid outrage at the decision by the nation's military regime head, Frank Bainimarama, to postpone the election timetable to 2014.
However, despite issuing a warning in March that Fiji risked suspension, the nine-member Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group gave the Pacific nation until September 1 to commit to holding elections next year. "In the absence of such confirmation, Fiji will be fully suspended on that date," the Commonwealth group said.
The group "authorised the chair and the secretary-general to consult on engagement with the Fiji regime should a positive response be received, and to furnish a report to [its] next meeting in New York on September 26, 2009".
Fiji's military regime, which seized power in a 2006 coup, had promised to relinquish its control and allow voters to go to the polls. However, Commodore Bainimarama failed to meet his own deadline of March and delayed the election date by five years. He further angered world leaders by abrogating the constitution in April, removing the judiciary and enforcing blanket censorship of the media.
The Commonwealth group – which comprises Britain, Ghana, Malaysia, Namibia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, St Lucia, Sri Lanka and Uganda – said it "deplored" Fiji's decision to delay its planned elections, as well as the regime's "purported abrogation of the constitution" and "further entrenchment of authoritarian rule".
It was also deeply concerned at the "ongoing violation of human rights, including freedom of speech and assembly, arbitrary detention of opponents of the military regime, and the undermining of the independence of the judiciary and legal system".
The Commonwealth gave Fiji a six-month deadline in March to restore democracy. Two months later Fiji was suspended from the Pacific Islands Forum – which is due to meet in Cairns on Wednesday – for failing to hold elections.
If Fiji fails to meet the group's latest order, it will stop receiving aid from the Commonwealth and be banned from the 2010 Commonwealth Games.
Some observers had expected the Commonwealth to suspend Fiji at its meeting on Friday.
However, such a decision needed the full backing of each of the nine member countries. It was understood that the group was split over the issue of ousting Fiji.
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