VZCZCXRO4263
OO RUEHPB
DE RUEHSV #0254/01 1800119
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
O 290119Z JUN 06
FM AMEMBASSY SUVA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 3151
INFO RUEHBY/AMEMBASSY CANBERRA PRIORITY 1238
RUEHPB/AMEMBASSY PORT MORESBY PRIORITY 0852
RUEHWL/AMEMBASSY WELLINGTON PRIORITY 1029
RHHJJAA/JICPAC HONOLULU HI PRIORITY
RHHMUNA/HQ USPACOM HONOLULU HI PRIORITY

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 SUVA 000254 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/29/2016 
TAGS: PGOV FJ
SUBJECT: FIJI'S MULTI-PARTY CABINET: IS THE HONEYMOON 
ALREADY OVER? 
 
Classified By: DCM Ted Mann.  Reason 1.4 (b) and (d) 
 
¶1. (C) Summary: The creation of a multi-party Cabinet 
following the May elections has given rise to a groundswell 
of hope and optimism that Fiji's rival SDL and Labor parties 
might finally cooperate for the good of the nation.  Across 
the political spectrum, there have been calls for a new, less 
confrontational political culture.  PM Qarase and others, 
including high figures with the Labor Party, have declared 
their willingness to strive to work together.  However, the 
reality of nine Labor ministers in a majority SDL Cabinet is 
even now raising important issues for the Labor Party and 
particularly for its autocratic leader, Mahendra Chaudhry. 
Chaudhry's apparent initial tolerance of the multi-party 
construct is now fading, and he has set about re-establishing 
party discipline among his party's Cabinet ministers.  The 
ministers have been warned of their commitment to the Party's 
manifesto, which stands in sometimes stark contradiction to 
that of the SDL.  Chaudhry's pulling back has exposed a rift 
with other leaders in the party, some of them ministers in 
the new Cabinet, who say they want to focus on collaboration 
in the Cabinet, not confrontation.  They have challenged 
Chaudhry over nominations to the Senate, setting the stage 
for an intra-party dispute that is likely to have 
ramifications for their -- and Labor's -- future role in the 
multi-party Cabinet.  End Summary. 
 
A Surprising, Hopeful Beginning 
----------------------------- 
 
¶2. (C) In the wake of the May 6-13 general elections, as 
voters and observers alike considered the implications of the 
narrow win by incumbent PM Laisenia Qarase's SDL United Fiji 
Party, the PM surprised the nation with a generous offer of 
substantive cabinet positions to the SDL's chief rival, the 
Fiji Labor Party (FLP).  Under the constitution, the 
governing party is obliged to offer cabinet positions based 
on their relative strength in the polls to all parties that 
received ten percent or more of the popular vote. 
Ironically, in the days before his offer, Qarase told the 
media he did not believe that the multi-party powersharing 
required by Fiji's 1997 constitution could actually work in 
practice.  Indeed, five years before, following the 2000 
elections, he made a mockery of the provision by offering the 
FLP a portfolio of wholly non-substantive ministries, 
including some proposed solely to fulfill the legal 
requirement.  The FLP balked, demanded better, went to court 
and won, but eventually opted to stay in opposition.  This 
time around, on May 18 Qarase caught all by surprise with an 
offer to the FLP of seven front-line ministries, including 
labor, agriculture, health, commerce and industry, energy, 
and environment, out of a cabinet of 17. 
 
¶3. (C) FLP Secretary General Mehendra Chaudhry accepted the 
offer immediately and then asked for still more.  After some 
wrangling and a significant expansion of the cabinet, Labor 
now holds 9 of 24 ministries.  With some skeptical 
exceptions, the public response to the hybrid cabinet, with 
its promise of compromise and powersharing, has been 
overwhelmingly positive.  From all quarters have come calls 
on the Government and Labor to embrace and make the new 
arrangement work for the good of the nation.  Despite 
lingering skepticism and some flourishes of old-style 
confrontational rhetoric, a general sense of hope and 
hesitant optimism took hold.  Former ambassador to the United 
States and newly named Speaker of the House of 
Representatives Pita Nacuva told Ambassador Dinger that he 
sees a markedly changed atmosphere in Parliament and hopes to 
encourage it further.  Despite his earlier public skepticism, 
 Qarase too has been publicly talking up the multi-party 
cabinet, now becoming known on the street as the MPC.  Its 
success, he said, is now his personal undertaking.  Qarase 
told the Ambassador on June 21 that he remains upbeat about 
the MPC.  Labor's participation in the MPC would, he said, 
allow the two parties to hammer out common policies within 
the relative privacy of the cabinet. 
 
¶4. (C) Much editorial ink was spilled in the weeks following 
Labor's acceptance of the Cabinet positions over who would 
fulfill the role of the Opposition, so key to the Westminster 
system.  For a time Chaudhry claimed that he and the other 
FLP MPs outside Cabinet could play that role, despite their 
nine party colleagues being now firmly ensconced in the 
government's new Cabinet.  Eventually the two-member 
Parliamentary faction of the United People's Party of Mick 
Beddoes formally rescinded its alliance with the FLP and 
claimed the role for itself.  Beddoes too reported a new tone 
in Parliament.  He told the Ambassador he found Qarase open 
 
SUVA 00000254  002 OF 003 
 
 
to discussion and less inclined to engage in the combative 
Westminster style debate typical in post-independence Fiji. 
Beddoes said he had proposed to Qarase and Chaudhry that the 
three of them meet regularly for kava-drinking sessions to 
get more comfortable with one another and informally discuss 
issues needing action.  However, despite the general 
feel-good atmosphere and the formal assumption by the UPP of 
the mantel of the loyal opposition, Chaudhry and the 21 other 
Labor MPs outside the Cabinet have continued to speak and act 
as part of the opposition. 
 
Cracks Appear in the MPC Foundation 
----------------------------------- 
 
¶5. (C) On June 15, the first sign surfaced that some of the 
MPC's innate contradictions are still to be solved.  After 
just four weeks of optimism and encouraging words from all 
sides, Labor PM Lehk Ram Vayeshnoi, FLP deputy secretary 
general and the newly named minister of energy and mineral 
resources, told his fellow parliamentarians and the nation 
alike that for him, the Labor Party manifesto would guide his 
decisions in cabinet, not any obligation to Qarase and the 
MPC.  He reminded Labor MPs, including those serving in the 
Cabinet, that they had run for election on the FLP's 
manifesto and were bound by its policies.  He called on 
Qarase to withdraw controversial legislation opposed by 
Labor, such as the Truth and Reconciliation Bill and a 
fishing rights bill favoring indigenous Fijian communities. 
Despite several public remonstrations from his fellow FLP 
cabinet ministers for having stepped out of line, Vayeshnoi 
refused to retract his stance, even after a one-on-one with 
Qarase about cabinet procedures.  FLP chief Chaudhry 
initially sidestepped the controversy, saying in public only 
that Vayeshnoi, and by implication all FLP ministers, 
retained the right to speak his mind. 
 
¶6. (C) In the wake of the controversy over Vayeshnoi's 
remarks, Qarase worked to maintain the sense of cooperation 
and optimism.  He told Parliament an analysis of his SDL 
party's manifesto and that of the FLP had found significant 
areas of policy "convergence."  The atmosphere in cabinet is, 
he said, "cordial and mutually supportive."  He announced 
that he would be proposing a cabinet committee to promote 
cooperation and overcome party policy differences within the 
cabinet.  Qarase invited Chaudhry to an urgent June 28 
meeting to discuss Cabinet procedures and guidelines to 
facilitate cooperation, but Chaudhry declined due to 
scheduling conflicts.  According to FLP contacts, he was 
scheduled to depart that day for a full-expense paid trip to 
Taiwan. 
 
Labor Splits Over Cabinet Role and Party Discipline 
--------------------------------------------- ------ 
 
¶7. (C) In recent days, a split in the FLP ranks has become 
more and more apparent.  According to sources in the party, 
on June 22, an unidentified FLP member, apparently prompted 
by Chaudhry, tried to convince Labor backbenchers to stage a 
walk-out during a parliamentary address by Labor MP and new 
Minister of Labor Krishna Datt.  The ploy failed but it 
revealed a growing divide between a group around Chaudhry and 
other members of the FLP's leadership.  Datt is a member of 
the party's management board and part of a small but 
influential group that is increasingly challenging Chaudhry's 
autocratic rule.  The rift widened some at a June 24 meeting 
of Labor's  national council.  In a discussion paper, 
Chaudhry reminded members that, whereas the FLP's management 
board and the party's parliamentary caucus had accepted 
Qarase's initial offer of Cabinet seats, the national council 
-- where Chaudhry holds sway -- is the governing body of the 
FLP and should have made the decision.  (Note:  According to 
numerous media reports at the time, Chaudhry himself also 
accepted the offer.  End note.) 
 
¶8. (C) In his discussion paper, Chaudhry wrote that the 
Vayeshnoi controversy made it urgent to draw up "firm 
guidelines and ground rules" to govern the relationship of 
the FLP and the SDL government.  "Central to the whole issue 
is the question of loyalty and obligation to the Party," he 
wrote.  According to Chaudhry, the party constitution makes 
clear that "No member, whether an MP or Cabinet minister, is 
above the Party," and every member "must uphold the 
principles and objectives of the Party," which finds its 
expression in the party manifesto.  This is bound in time to 
bring the FLP ministers into conflict with their SDL 
colleagues policies.  In that case, the paper notes, "it is 
quite in order for a Labour member of the Cabinet, and 
backbenchers, in the context of a multi-party Cabinet to 
 
SUVA 00000254  003 OF 003 
 
 
express opinions and adhere to policies that may be in 
conflict with that of the ruling party." 
 
¶9. (C) Adding to the gathering contradictions surrounding the 
MPC construct, Solicitor General Nainendra Nand was reported 
in the press June 27 as saying that Qarase's invitation was 
to the FLP as a whole and, thus, all its members are 
effectively members of the government, and bound to vote 
collectively.  This is true for the FLP ministers, he said, 
but also extends to FLP backbenchers outside the Cabinet. 
This was rejected by Senator Anand Singh, the FLP's legal 
advisor and a former attorney general.  Singh told the 
Embassy that, in his view, non-ministerial FLP members are 
not part of the government.  In apparent contradiction to 
Chaudhry's portrayal of party discipline, Singh said that FLP 
ministers may differ with their SDL colleagues within 
Cabinet, but once an issue comes to the floor of the House, 
they must either support Cabinet's decision or abstain; they 
may not vote against a Cabinet bill. 
 
Labor Rebels Challenge an Autocrat 
---------------------------------- 
 
¶10. (C) The growing rift between Chaudhry and the small group 
of FLP management board members around Datt and party deputy 
leader Poseci Bune was splashed across the front pages of 
Fiji's daily newspapers June 29.  In the days before  his 
June 28 departure overseas, Chaudhry had submitted to 
Opposition leader Beddoes a list of FLP nominees to the 
Senate, without clearing the list with the party's management 
board.  Bune wrote to Beddoes asking him to withhold the list 
and to Chaudhry demanding an explanation why the list had not 
been cleared with the management board.  A party contact told 
the Embassy that the Chaudhry list, in addition to having 
been drawn up without the knowledge of the management board, 
failed to include a party stalwart who had sacrificed his 
candidacy in the recent elections in favor of union leader 
Felix Anthony, another of the management board rebels with 
Datt and Bune.  According to the source, this quid pro quo 
had been agreed to before the election and failing to fulfill 
the deal would undercut Anthony's and the other's authority, 
a point that would have been well known to Chaudhry. 
 
¶11. (C) In his absence, FLP President Jokapeci Koroi defended 
Chaudhry's right to draw up the list and insisted the five 
management board rebels have no right to speak for the whole 
9-member board.  She said she had directed Beddoes to forward 
the original list.  Beddoes was quoted in the Fiji Times as 
having told Bune he must produce proof that he has the right 
to demand that Chaudhry's list be withdrawn.  According to 
press reports, the five management board members planned to 
compile their own list and ask Beddoes to submit in place of 
Chaudhry's.  A visibly angry Anthony told a television 
reporter that the issue came down to democracy within the 
party.  "For too long, the party has preached transparency 
and openness but not practiced them." 
 
Comment 
------- 
 
¶12. (C) Comment: The novelty and promise of the MPC strikes a 
positive chord in many -- perhaps a majority -- in Fiji, 
tired of the contentious political debate between the 
governing SDL and the rival FLP.  This promise is 
increasingly looking to be a victim of a power play by 
Chaudhry, who is seeing his stern control over the party 
eroded.  If he cannot enforce party discipline among the 
Labor ministers in Cabinet, he faces a steadily declining 
role in a party that most, but certainly not all FLP voters 
see as almost synonymous with him.  It is hard to see how the 
cooperation and compromise that has to be at the heart of a 
functioning multi-party Cabinet can be squared with 
Chaudhry's rigid insistence on maintaining Labor's identity 
as resolute opponent of the SDL.  Even if FPL infighting can 
be overcome, the MPC will continue to face serious 
challenges.  Qarase has told the Ambassador and others that 
he is determined to reintroduce the controversial 
Reconciliation and Tolerance Bill, sooner rather than later. 
The FLP party leadership under Chaudhry is almost certain to 
demand that the FLP ministers withhold their support of the 
bill, even in a significantly improved form.  This is certain 
to present Qarase with a challenge with regard to Cabinet 
discipline.  How he will react is not clear at this point, 
but it could easily provoke a life and death crisis in the 
MPC.  End Comment. 
DINGER