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Frank Bainimarama - Source: ONE News -
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Fiji's military government is under pressure to announce democratic elections on Thursday as a midnight deadline looms for the country's suspension from the 16-nation Pacific Islands Forum.
Australia and Pacific nations expect an angry reaction from coup leader and military chief Frank Bainimarama if he fails to call an election and the troubled island nation is expelled from the region's biggest grouping.
"Fiji will be suspended from the Forum on May 1 because the Fiji interim government has refused to meet the reasonable deadlines and conditions determined by the leaders of all Pacific countries," a spokesman for Australia's Foreign Affairs Department says, adding suspension was automatic.
Fiji was plunged into fresh political crisis this month after the president reappointed Bainimarama as interim prime minister, less than two days after a court ruled his 2006 coup and subsequent government was illegal.
Bainimarama, who has ruled out elections until 2012 after earlier promising a poll this year, immediately imposed emergency restrictions, including sending troops and police into media and government offices to gag opposition to his reform plans.
Fiji's suspension could splinter the Forum, whose smaller island nations have a history of non-interference in each others affairs in a brand of diplomacy dubbed the "Pacific Way".
Bainimarama may react by expelling harsh regime critic Australia's top diplomat, closing the Fiji-based Forum secretariat and revoking the diplomatic immunity of its chairman, Niue Prime Minister Toke Talagi.
Australia's Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and his Papua New Guinea counterpart Michael Somare on Tuesday said they could not accept within the Pacific Islands Forum, or the Commonwealth of former British colonies, a military government like Fiji's.
But Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd ruled out any meeting with Bainimarama, saying Fiji's actions had set the country up to be suspended from the Pacific Islands Forum, which is the key regional body.
Rudd said he expected Fiji to be suspended from the Commonwealth at a meeting on May 15.
The UN has already barred Fijian soldiers from future peacekeeping missions, which provide a lucrative source of income for the military with around 2,000 troops on blue helmet duties in the Sinai, Iraq and Sudan.
Fiji's interim attorney-general Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum says he does not expect his country would be removed from the forum, as Bainimarama had been informing forum members on recent developments in Fij.
"The prime minister's office has been busy dealing with this and I don't think that Fiji will be excluded from the PIF activities," he told FijiLive.
An angry reaction by the strongman could further harm investment and the tourism-reliant economy, driving away international visitors as the region's major powers Australia and New Zealand threatened tougher sanctions.
Credit agency Standard & Poor's this month cut Fiji's long-term rating credit rating to B minus from B, and its short-term rating to C from B, due to "Fiji's deteriorating political environment".
The central bank devalued the local dollar by 20% to boost tourism badly damaged by successive coups.
Fiji, a former British colony, has suffered four coups and a military mutiny since 1987, fuelled by tensions between indigenous Fijians and economically powerful ethnic Indians.
Australia demands elections
But Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd ruled out any meeting with
Bainimarama, saying Fiji's actions had set the country up to be
suspended from the Pacific Islands Forum, which is the key regional
body.
"This is the bloke who just abolished freedom of the press in Fiji,
this is the bloke who just sent independent judges, including those
from Australia, packing. This is a bloke who just suspended the
Constitution of Fiji. These are decisions taken by the military
government of Fiji," Rudd told Australia radio.
"What they need to do in Fiji is announce a timetable for
elections, which is reasonable, which is within the immediately
foreseeable future, not off in the total never-never, in order for
us to begin to contemplate any form of normality in our relations
with the Fijian military government."
Credit agency Standard & Poor's this month cut Fiji's long-term
rating credit rating to B-minus from B, and its short-term rating
to C from B, due to Fiji's deteriorating political
environment.
The central bank devalued the local dollar by 20 percent to boost
tourism badly damaged by successive coups.
Fiji, a former British colony, has had four coups and a military
mutiny since 1987, fuelled by tensions between indigenous Fijians
and economically powerful ethnic Indians.
