FIJI: SLOW PREP FOR ELECTION; PEOPLE'S CHARTER

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 SUVA 000033

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/29/2018
TAGS: PREL PGOV PHUM FJ
SUBJECT: FIJI: SLOW PREP FOR ELECTION; PEOPLE'S CHARTER
MACHINATIONS; IG CORRUPTION ISSUES

REF: A. SUVA 019


B. SUVA 013

C. SUVA 020

Classified By: Amb. Dinger. Sec. 1.4 (B,D).

Summary
--------------

1. (C) The interim government is beginning to put out signals
that preparations for a March 2009 election are lagging.
From what we hear, the problems are of the IG's own making,
and IG officials have been reluctant to accept offers of
outside help. The 35 people chosen for the People's Charter
process received the game plan last week. It is very broad
and detailed in scope, and seemingly would take years, not
months, to accomplish. With interim PM Bainimarama having
stated that completion of the Charter is essential before
elections can be held, worries about the election date
increase. Nonetheless, when Tonga PM Sevele visited Jan. 25,
he told the media he is satisfied with the IG's progress
toward elections, and he recommended that outsiders "not
pressure" the IG but instead remove travel bans and provide
support to move the country forward. A Catholic-priest NGO
activist with IG connections has published a book on
democracy that lambastes the U.S. Several recent vignettes
suggest the IG's emphasis on "cleaning up" past corruption
flies in the face of the regime's own flaws. End summary.

Chaudhry says election preparation behind schedule
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2. (C) Interim Finance Minister Chaudhry told Radio Fiji News
Jan. 24 that "the work required before the actual conduct of
polls is already behind schedule, and much more work needs to
be done." He added, "Whether this can be satisfied in the
remaining months to March 2009 is a matter which the
Electoral Commission would be best qualified to pronounce."
The current three-member Electoral Commission was appointed
by the IG and reportedly has a slant toward Chaudhry's Fiji
Labor Party.

Delay in appointing Election Supervisor
--------------

3. (SBU) Public Service Commission chairman Rishi Ram
revealed last week that the appointment of a Supervisor of
Elections has been delayed because two of the three members
of the appointing authority, the Constitutional Offices
Commission, ended their tenures in December and the interim
government (IG) has yet to appoint successors. Australia
funded an international search for Supervisor of Elections
candidates. We hear eight qualified candidates, mostly from
Australia and New Zealand, await interviews. Until last
week, Ram had been predicting an appointment would take place
by February. Now he has hedged his bets.

Electoral Boundaries Commission delay, too
--------------

4. (C) Also last week, after the long-delayed and
controversial appointment of the final member of the
Electoral Boundaries Commission (see ref B),the EBC said it
is ready to begin evaluation of last September's census data.
Chaudhry suggested census data "is not yet fully available;"
however, that is deceptive. The numbers and categories
needed for electoral boundary purposes have reportedly been
on record since October.

Who is behind the People's Charter?
--------------

5. (C) Some have been aware for many months that John Samy
and Francis Narayan were the originators of the People's
Charter proposal. Samy, a Fiji civil servant prior to the
1987 coups, thereafter joined the Asian Development Bank, and
now, in retirement, is a New Zealand citizen. Narayan,
another former ADB official, recently received an IG
appointment to head the Fiji Trade and Investment Board
(FTIB). With the first meeting of the National Council for
Building a Better Fiji (NCBBF, the People's Charter process)
two weeks ago, Samy stepped forward as head of the NCBBF
Secretariat, the group of full-time officials who will steer

SIPDIS
activity. In a "Close Up" media interview last weekend, Samy
was pressed for names of those who have assisted him. He
said he had offered his concept to the Qarase government
before the coup, with no reaction. Samy said, when pressed,
that Chaudhry contacted him last March to express IG
interest. Subsequently Samy said he consulted with a number
of people in Fiji, some in the IG, others outside. He

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mentioned CCF head Yabaki, CCF member Duvuloco (now in the
NCBBF secretariat),academics Vijay Naidu and Rajesh Chandra,
and even former Vice President Joni Madraiwiwi. On Jan. 29,
Madraiwiwi told the media that Samy had indeed contacted him
and asked him to be a co-chair of the NCBBF last March, but
after reflection Madraiwiwi declined the offer. (Note:
Madraiwiwi consulted with us at the time, and we pointed out
pitfalls.)

People's Charter process and the election
--------------

6. (C) During the initial sessions of the NCBBF, a few of the
IG-invited members raised a concern that the NCBBF process
not be utilized to delay elections. They were reacting to
public comments by Bainimarama that the Charter is the
military's "exit strategy" from interim rule, an essential
prerequisite for elections. Samy reportedly responded that
the Charter timeline has been worked back from March 2009,
the date Bainimarama promised Pacific Islands Forum leaders
elections will take place. Still, a number of NCBBF members
have commented that the scope and detail of proposals Samy
provided the three NCBBF working groups in meetings last week
signal a process that could take years, not just months, to
complete. NCBBF members Beddoes and Tarte have said publicly
that they will leave the process if it is used to delay
elections. Comment: Cynical observers have presumed all
along that an aim of Bainimarama and Chaudhry is to discover
at some point in 2008 that the Charter simply can't be
finished early enough to permit March 2009 elections,
necessitating postponement.

Tonga PM Sevele sees IG progress toward elections
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7. (U) Per ref C, Tonga PM Sevele, current Chair of the
Pacific Islands Forum (PIF),stopped by Suva last Friday on
his way home from a visit to Honolulu. Aside from a meeting
at the Embassy, Sevele met with Bainimarama and with members
of the PIF-Fiji Working Group to get an update on the status
of the PIF-mandated process toward an election. Sevele later
told the media he feels Fiji is progressing well toward
democratic elections in March 2009. He recommended that
"people should not pressure the interim government but
instead provide support." He reportedly called on Australia
and New Zealand to review their travel bans and other
restrictions on those assisting the IG, as (such people) are
helping move the country forward."

Father Barr slams U.S. approach to democracy
--------------

8. (SBU) Catholic priest Father Kevin Barr has published a
slim book, "Thinking about Democracy," that is highly
critical of the United States. He proposes the U.S. is
primarily an advocate for capitalism, not democracy. Barr
heads the Ecumenical Centre for Research, Education, and
Advocacy (ECREA),an NGO that focuses on a "pro-poor" agenda
and argues that "economic" human rights are at least as
important as "political" human rights. Barr briefly
acknowledges in the book that the 2006 Fiji coup was wrong
and that human-rights violations were a shame, but he is
enamored with the IG's "clean-up" agenda and its "non-racist"
vision for the future. Barr sees a transformation of Fiji's
polity as far more important than early elections. Worth
noting: the IG has made Barr one of the three members of the
Electoral Boundary Commission, a role for which he has no
known qualifications.

RFMF/IG corruption?
--------------

9. (C) Military commander Bainimarama proposed that a "clean
up" of corruption was a prime motivation for the December
2006 coup. Opponents of the coup were skeptical. While
nobody would suggest the government of deposed PM Qarase was
corruption-free, thus far the IG-created Fiji Independent
Commission Against Corruption (FICAC) has not revealed any
ministerial-level corruption from the Qarase era. In the
meantime, several IG activities are receiving rumor-mill
criticism:

-- Seemingly credible allegations that an unnamed "senior
minister" (by all accounts Chaudhry) attempted to evade
income taxes on sizable overseas bank accounts have been
swept under the rug. Finance Minister Chaudhry oversees the
tax and customs authority, FIRCA.

-- A rumor has spread that one of Chaudhry's cronies, Arvin

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Datt, who joined the FIRCA Board after the coup, recently
established a carpet-retail company and has been awarded the
contract to supply and install all carpets for the new FIRCA
complex in Suva.

-- For the first six months after the coup, the military took
over security of Fiji ports, then withdrew from that role
reportedly as a cost-saving move. News leaked last week that
a "private" firm run by senior military reservists
(territorials) has been awarded a major contract for port
security. Interim PM Bainimarama told the media the contract
was awarded through a transparent process and on merit.
Others are not so sure, and some commentators have recalled
Bainimarama's pledge just after the coup that nobody in the
military would profit.

Comment
--------------

10. (C) Tonga PM Sevele's positive comments about the
election-preparation state of play suggest he weighed IG
opinion heavily. We are quite sure the chair of the PIF-Fiji
Working Group, PNG High Commissioner Eafeare, and at least
the Aussie and Kiwi members would not have given such an
upbeat assessment. We have heard serious concern from all of
them, in light of factors such as those described in paras
2-4, that the IG is not working hard enough on election
preparations and is not seeming open to offers of assistance
to keep up the pace.
DINGER