A Fiji democratic mandate for the coup leader – what now for the media?

Attorney-General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum and Rear-Admiral (Ret) Voreqe Bainimarama's Fiji First party is leading the country in the next four years. Photo: Mads Anneberg, an AUT Pacific Media Centre student on internship in Suva with Repúblika Magazine and Pacific Scoop for the elections

By David Robie

IN THE END, it was no real surprise. For 2006 coup leader Josaia Voreqe Bainimarama, who retired recently as the military strongman with the rank of rear admiral, it was a foregone conclusion that he would emerge as the triumphant victor in Fiji’s first general election in almost eight years.

Just as it was inevitable in 1992, when the original coupster - who staged two coups in the same year, 1987 -  Brigadier-General Sitiveni Rabuka made the transition from military backed prime minister to civilian leader.

A major difference is that Rabuka was elected in 1992 on an indigenous supremacy platform of “Fiji for Fijians” while Bainimarama’s Fiji First party is pledged to a multiracial “Fiji for all Fijians”.

The hope is that Bainimarama’s authoritarian streak will gradually mellow and he will come to recognise as an elected leader the critical importance of a civil society discourse with a strong non-government organisation sector and an independent Fourth Estate.

The media was once a proud and feisty part of Fiji democracy. It can achieve that credible status again.

Live blog: Bainimarama takes commanding lead in Fiji elections

Livestreaming with Repúblika editor Ricardo Morris and Pacific Scoop’s Mads Anneberg.

PACIFIC SCOOP TEAM
By Ricardo Morris, Mads Anneberg, Alistar Kata and Biutoka Kacimaiwai in Suva
WHILE the results are provisional at this stage, it is quite clear today that the people of Fiji have given coup leader Prime Minister Josaia Voreqe Bainimarama a democratic mandate.

His Fiji First party was polling way ahead of the opposition Social Democratic Liberal Party (SODELPA) at 6am this morning when counting was suspended until later today.

With 1244 of the 2025 polling stations tallied by the Fijian Elections Centre, Fiji First with a multicultural policy of “Fiji for all” had 233,094 votes, or 60.2 percent of the total vote – more than double the indigenous party SODELPA, which represents the political group ousted in the 2006 military coup.