‘Dark Clouds’ Hang over Coalition Government

Fiji's Parliament is in chaos. It’s clear there’s a lack of or-ganisation or order, a complete confusion on both sides of the August House.

What transpired over the past week with the endorsing of the Special Committee on Emoluments report during the Parliament session on Friday to increase most of the parliamentarians’ salaries and allowances, has the potential to derail the Coalition Government, and create changes in the Opposition.

The committee, chaired by the Minister for Women Lynda Tabuya, faced a lot of backlash from mem-bers of the public for the tabled re-port highlighting some exorbitant increases, which the committee, through its independent consult-ant, saw necessary because of their official capacity.

“Public pressure will contribute to internal party dynamics, and we are going to see shifting scenarios within the coalition and the Fiji-First Opposition party,” said Political Sociologist Professor Steven Ratuva.

Unless there’s emergency crisis management meetings to sort out the differences, Professor Ratuva foresees dark clouds on the horizon for the coalition Government.

“We are just beginning to see the fractures and the next few days will most certainly see even more dramatic developments.

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Trade, Manoa Kamikamica, who voted in favour of the amend-ments, believes in the resilience of the coalition to weather another political storm.

As far as I am concerned, the coalition is intact. Like any relationship, it will have its challenges,Mr Kamikamica said.

Last Friday, 40 Members of Parliament, including 16 FijiFirst Opposition members, voted for the emol-ument report, seven voted against and five abstained.

With mounting public pressure and breach of FijiFirst party leadership directive, the 16 FijiFirst MPs now find themselves terminated from the party.

However, they remain as MPs until the Speaker of Parliament receives a formal letter, which the Speaker will have to submit to the Electoral Commission, chaired by Barbara Malimali.

It seems the entire process was orchestrated by a few, and once again Ms Tabuya is at the centre of what seems to be reliance on the herd mentality to quickly get the recommendations through Parliament.

This week, Ms Tabuya raised serious allegations against Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance, Biman Prasad, in her efforts to protect the image of the coalition.

She emailed a detailed statement outlining the parliamentary pro-cesses followed by the committee.

Mr Prasad and the National Federation Party (NFP) hold five Parliament seats – crucial to the coalition’s survival.

The five NFP parliamentarians voted against the report as per the NFP board’s directive.

Ms Tabuya labelled the NFP’s actions as a clear public defiance and “a show of no confidence in the Prime Minister and the coalition Government”.

Taufa Vakatale

Lest we forget, a similar incident occurred within the Soqosoqo Vakavulewa ni Taukei (SVT) Gov-ernment in 1995, led by Mr Rabuka.

The late Taufa Vakatale, who was then the DPM and member of the SVT party, was terminated from Parliament for going against her party and Mr Rabuka on renewed French nuclear testing on Mururoa Atoll in French Polynesia.

Will Mr Prasad and the NFP parliamentarians suffer a similar fate, or will the coalition adopt a Band-Aid solution to steer them through the next two years?

In an interview on Friday, Mr Rabuka made his stand very clear: “I cannot have a Deputy Prime Min-ister that does not work in accordance with my directive as party leader, as coalition leader, particularly when I shared on the morning of Wednesday to let us stick together until election,” he said.

Despite dipping one of his two DPM in hot soup, Mr Rabuka in-sists the coalition is intact. He goes on to say that he was ill advised over the past few days – clearly not the first time this has happened.

Ms Tabuya did not address ques-tions on the implications of the current controversy on the coalition.

“I will leave that to the honourable PM and the two coalition leaders to answer that,” she said.

“I am merely responding to honourable Prasad and NFP’s actions that have affected the coalition. He (Prasad) lied at the expense of vilifying the emoluments committee members, the Coalition Government and the processes of Parliament.”

Ms Tabuya’s actions are rumoured to be backed by a strong faction of the coalition – one that she strongly denounces.

“They are purely mine. I have the right to respond as chair of the Emoluments Committee to defend the parliamentary processes and to state the truth about NFP’s involvement. I have the right to respond as a member of the coalition to defend the coalition against attacks from honourable Prasad and the NFP,” she wrote on Viber.

Responding to the allegations, NFP general secretary Kamal Iyer said the allegations were for “the most part false, possibly defamatory and in some cases breach Cabi-net confidentiality.”

Leader of the Unity Fiji Party, Savenaca Narube, said there seemed to have been a rush by Mr Rabuka to get the recommendations across.

“Why the rush? This issue has the potential to break up the coalition. It can be attributed only to one thing and that is poor leadership,” Mr Narube said.

“The finger-pointing and the con-fusion about the stance taken by the Coalition Government reflects the absence of consultations on this report by the Parliament Emoluments Committee.”

Mr Narube explained that the normal process would be to table the report in Cabinet where the stance of the three parties would be decided. This was neglected.

“The report should have assessed countervailing conditions, which it did not do.

“The recommendations should have been given to a select committee for wider consultations.”

Opposition

For the eight democratic years the FijiFirst party led Fiji, the party’s MPs sang the same tune - a regimented form of leadership.

It may have seemed the 16 FijiFirst MPs had gone rogue, breaching the party’s directive to vote against the emoluments report.

Party president Ratu Joji Satakala said the MPs were directed in writing to vote against the proposal during a caucus meeting last Friday.

The 16 took a costly stand resulting in their termination from the party.

Their termination letter was signed by Voreqe Bainimarama, who is serving time in prison for perverting the cause of justice.

The letter was also signed by Faiyaz Koya in his capacity as the acting general secretary of the party. In the Opposition block, Mr Koya, Premila Kumar and Hem Chand voted against the proposal.

Parveen Bala, Aliki Bia and Alvick Maharaj did not vote, while Viam Pillay and Joseph Nand abstained.

Opposition Leader Inia Seruiratu directed questions of their termination to Jone Usamate.

The 16 are disputing the legality of their termination.

Mr Usamate confirmed they remained as MPs until the full process of the law was followed.

Emolument report

The motion tabled in Parliament on Friday recommending changes in salaries and allowances comes into effect on August 1, 2024, once the budget process is completed.

A budget of $8.1 million would have to be put aside to cater for the changes in salaries and allowances.

Mr Rabuka says a determining factor of the proposed changes was the availability of funds.

The Emolument Committee has proposed amendments to the:

•  Parliamentary Retirement Allowances Act 1989; and the
•  Parliamentary Remunerations Act 2014.

If the statement by the Prime Minister is anything to go by, members of the public will have the opportunity to express their views on the Bill to amend the Remunerations Act 2014, which covers the proposed salary changes.

The Bill will also be reviewed by an independent party before it goes to Cabinet, and changes effected.

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