Acting Prime Minister and Attorney-General  Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum yesterday said Ratu Epeli Nailatikau had transformed the role of President.

He was speaking in response to the address by Ratu Epeli during the ceremonial opening of Parliament last week.

Where once the presidency seemed reserved and distant, it was now fully engaged with the people and very demanding, he said.

Mr Sayed-Khaiyum said: “His Excellency had 360 public engagements all over Fiji in 2014, bringing Government to nearly every town and village and making the statement that the President is indeed the servant of the people,” he said.

He said Fiji was also at a crossroads at the time Ratu Epeli assumed the presidency: “Would it continue to exist as a nation driven apart by separation, discrimination and privilege only for some, or would it come together as one nation, one people with full equality and opportunity for all?

At that time, he said  Ratu Epeli came forward to show Fijians that a man of principle could be above

politics even in an intensely political time.

“He has been a lodestar of our progress, keeping us mindful and accountable to the principles we all profess—always above politics.”

He said Ratu Epeli  had also visited nearly every secondary school in the country—175 in all—to educate youth about HIV/AIDS.

“A man who has courageously embraced people who have been traditionally shunned or ignored—AIDS sufferers; gay, lesbian and transgender individuals; the disabled and the poor.

Ratu Epeli had validated and confirmed them all in their worth and in their humanity, and he had welcomed them to the core of Fijian society’

He said the President was a man who possessed both nobility and the common touch and who was equally comfortable in the presence of royalty or the most humble individual.

Ratu Epeli had made a principled stand when he condemned attempts to set up an alternative state.

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