Ousted Fiji leader still hopeful 

The Fiji coup d'etat of December 2006 impacted on people across the island nation, but none more so than Laisenia Qarase.

As the prime minister forced from office at the hands of military leader Commodore Frank Bainimarama, Qarase has come in for special treatment since his ousting.

He cannot carry out his elected duties, is facing charges of abusing office, and claims his family has been victimised.

I meet the 67-year-old former leader at the Holiday Inn in Fiji's capital Suva.

He stands taller than most Fijians, and is dressed in a floral shirt and a traditional sulu (skirt-like garment), but that isn't what makes him easy to spot when I arrive.

He sticks out because he is animatedly chatting to people who have bumped into him in the lobby.

They recognise him and want to shake the hand of the man they see as their country's leader-in-waiting.

"It has been frustrating. Personally, it has been a great loss to me," he says of the coup.

"They (the military government) are not allowing any payment to me. I am being deprived of benefits that any usual prime minister who has served the country for more than five years gets.

"I really don't know why they did that."

Bainimarama claims Qarase was corrupt and elected to office in a rigged election. He says the coup was needed to weed out the prime minister and others in the government.

Despite the allegations, precious little evidence has come forward.

The military regime accuses Qarase of spending public money on a Christmas shopping spree, and allowing his family to benefit from government contracts.

He continues to be investigated by the Fiji Independent Commission Against Corruption (FICAC).

It is a strange development for the man who once stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Bainimarama, now his chief critic.

"I didn't want to go into politics. Actually Bainimarama got me into politics in the year 2000," he explains.

"I was part of the council, the military council, as an adviser on the economy and so on. They were looking for an interim prime minister and I happened to be stupid enough to accept the job."

The 2006 military coup was the fourth in Fiji since 1987, and in 2000 a short-lived coup briefly saw businessman George Speight seize office.

Bainimarama moved against Speight before handing power to Qarase.

After a return to democracy, Qarase won the 2001 election and was victorious again in May 2006.

A banker by trade, he proved popular with business leaders while in power because he wanted to liberalise the economy and boost tourism.

Qarase's relationship with Bainimarama steadily went downhill ahead of the 2006 take-over, with the military leader angry at what he considered leniency towards those responsible for the 2000 coup.

Eventually their co-operation turned to outright hostility when Bainimarama demanded key pieces of legislation be withdrawn, including one that would have given conditional pardons to coup plotters.

By December 2006, Bainimarama had ordered his prime minister to resign, ultimately seizing power on the sixth day of the month.

International observers had said the May 2006 election was credible and basically fair, but less than a month after the coup, Australian conman Peter Foster released controversial recordings.

The tapes purported to show an official in Qarase's SDL Party admitting votes had been stuffed into ballots.

Qarase described the video as a "well-staged show" designed to discredit his government, and warned people not to believe Foster.

To those seeking to show his government was corrupt, it was manna from heaven.

A short time after the tape's release Foster escaped police custody in Fiji, claiming later that it was with the help of the new government.

With a pained expression, Qarase tells me one of the hardest parts about being thrown out of office has been its impact on his family and friends.

"I have got two sons in Australia now. I have advised them to get away from Fiji because they were among the first to be victimised," he said.

"I have also got a son in the (United) States. He has applied for a green card."

He said his son now in America was "terrorised" by the military following the coup and investigated for corruption.

"They really hounded him ... He just couldn't survive. I said: `Look, you had better get away, try and find something overseas. When things settle down then you can come back'."

There have been widespread allegations that enemies of the army have been roughed-up by soldiers since the coup.

The United States has described how women were sexually molested and a former government minister was forced to run around a track at gunpoint.

None of Qarase's family were physically assaulted, but he says his friends were.

"Some of them have been called up to the barracks and then sworn at and some of them were punched up and things like that," he says matter of factly.

He tells me it has been tough to watch the crime rate in Fiji soar since the coup, an occurrence he links to Fiji being ruled by a government that broke the law to take office.

Despite what he has been through, Qarase says his political career may not be over if Bainimarama eventually returns the country to democracy.

A court case challenging his expulsion and the legality of the coup was completed earlier this year and is being considered by judges in the High Court.

"He (Bainimarama) can only prevent me by throwing me into prison or something like that, but I do intend to stand," he explains.