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Frank Bainimarama - Source: ONE News -
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Fijian leaders have rejected former Papua New Guinea Prime
Minister Sir Rabbie Namaliu as chairman of an election taskforce
because he is a puppet of Australia and New Zealand.
The United Nations, the Commonwealth, Australia and New Zealand
support Namaliu's candidacy to head the President's Political
Dialogue Forum, with an agenda to get elections held this
year.
But 16 of the 19 Fijian political parties blocked the bid at a
meeting on Friday, PNG's Post Courier reported on Tuesday.
Fiji's self-appointed Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama prefers
PNG's ambassador to China John Momis, former Singapore Prime
Minister Lee Kwan Yiew or Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop
Desmond Tutu.
"Namaliu is (an) Australia and New Zealand puppet, when Australia
says jump, he jumps," PNG's Post Courier newspaper on Tuesday
reported an unnamed Fijian party head as saying.
The newspaper's editorial says the block is an insult to PNG, which
has been trying to help Fiji.
"This is a downright insult to Sir Rabbie, to his people of East
New Britain (Province) and to the nation of PNG, not least to our
PM Michael Somare who has been a great friend of Fiji and its
leaders over the years," it said on Tuesday.
A special Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) summit held in PNG's capital
Port Moresby in January gave a deadline to Bainimarama for
elections to be held sometime this year.
Fiji will be the first country suspended from the PIF regional
grouping unless it declares an election date by May 1.
PIF leaders were critical when Bainimarama, who overthrew Fiji's
elected government in December 2006, backtracked on a promise to
hold elections by March this year and then snubbed a PIF
meeting.
Bainimarama maintains the constitution must be amended to make
electoral laws less discriminatory towards Fiji's non-indigenous
minorities before he can call elections, a process he said could
take up to 10 years.
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