George Speight, also known by his pseudonym Ilikimi Naitini, is a Fijian businessman and politician who was the leader of the 2000 Fijian coup d'état, in which he and rebel soldiers from Fiji's Counter Revolutionary Warfare Unit seized the Fijian Parliament and held Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry and 35 other MP's hostage from 19 May 2000 to 13 July 2000. After being convicted of treason for leading the coup, he is currently serving a sentence of life imprisonment.
The United Fiji Party was a political party in Fiji. It was founded in 2001 by Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase as a power base; it absorbed most of the Christian Democratic Alliance and other conservative groups, and its endorsement by the Great Council of Chiefs (Bose Levu Vakaturaga) caused it to be widely seen as the successor to the Alliance Party, the former ruling party that had dominated Fijian politics from the 1960s to the 1980s. It drew its support mainly from indigenous Fijiians.
RatuSir Kamisese Mara, was a Fijian politician, who served as Chief Minister from 1967 to 1970, when Fiji gained its independence from the United Kingdom, and, apart from one brief interruption in 1987, the first Prime Minister from 1970 to 1992. He subsequently served as president from 1993 to 2000.
Tupeni Lebaivalu Baba is a Fijian academic, politician, and former Cabinet Minister. A founding member of the Fiji Labour Party, he served as a Cabinet Minister in the government of Timoci Bavadra until removed from office by the 1987 Fijian coups d'état, and then one of the two Deputy Prime Ministers in the government of Mahendra Chaudhry until removed from office by the 2000 Fijian coup d'état. After splitting with Choudhry in the wake of the coup, he founded the New Labour Unity Party to contest the 2001 election, but failed to win a seat in Parliament. He unsuccessfully attempting to re-enter politics at the 2006 election under the banner of the Soqosoqo Duavata ni Lewenivanua, and again at the 2014 election as part of the Social Democratic Liberal Party.
The Fijian coups d'état of 1987 resulted in the overthrow of the elected government of Fijian Prime Minister Timoci Bavadra, the deposition of Elizabeth II as Queen of Fiji, and in the declaration of a republic. The first coup d'état, in which Bavadra was deposed, took place on 14 May 1987; a second coup d'état on 25 September ended the monarchy, and was shortly followed by the proclamation of a republic on 10 October. Both military actions were led by Lieutenant Colonel Sitiveni Rabuka, then third in command of the Royal Fiji Military Forces.
The Fiji coup d'état of 2000 was a civilian coup d'état by hardline i-Taukei nationalists against the elected government of an Indo-Fijian Prime Minister, Mahendra Chaudhry on 19 May 2000. This was followed by an attempt on 27 May by President Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara to assert executive authority, and then by a military coup on 29 May by Republic of Fiji Military Forces Commander Commodore Frank Bainimarama. The coups resulted in the removal of the elected government and its replacement by an interim regime headed by Josefa Iloilo. In March 2001 the Court of Appeal of Fiji ruled that the coups and interim regime were illegal. An elected government was finally restored by the 2001 Fijian general election.
Two military mutinies took place in connection with the civilian coup d'état that occurred in Fiji in 2000, the first while the rebellion instigated by George Speight was in progress, and the second four months after it had ended.
Poseci Waqalevu Bune was a Fijian civil servant, diplomat, politician and Cabinet Minister. He served as chair of the Public Service Commissioner, secretary to the Prime Minister, and as Fiji's permanent representative to the United Nations, as well as a Cabinet Minister in the governments of Mahendra Chaudhry and Laisenia Qarase, and in the military regime of Frank Bainimarama. Bune died of prostate cancer on 22 November 2023, at the age of 77.
Adi Ateca Moceiwaqa Mara Ganilau was a Fijian public figure and the eldest daughter of the former Prime Minister and President, the late Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara. Later in life she made many statements to the press about her family and the government.
A number of prominent participants in the 2000 Fijian coup d'état were tried, and some convicted, in 2004 and 2005.
General elections were held in Fiji between 6 and 13 May 2006.
The mutiny that took place at Fiji's Queen Elizabeth Barracks in Suva on 2 November 2000 resulted in the death of four loyal soldiers. Four of the rebels were subsequently beaten to death after the rebellion had been quelled.
Fiji's President, Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara resigned under duress on May 29, 2000, and handed power over to Commodore Frank Bainimarama. In what politicians have called a "coup within a coup," Ratu Mara was whisked away on a warship on May 28, where he was allegedly approached by a group of present and former military and police officers who ordered him to suspend the Constitution. When he refused, the group, including Bainimarama, former Prime Minister and 1987 Coup Leader Sitiveni Rabuka, former military commander Ratu Epeli Ganilau, and former Police Commissioner Isikia Savua, are said to have forced Mara's resignation. He was subsequently taken to his home island in the Lau Islands.
Hinduism is the second-largest religion in Fiji, and primarily has a following among Indo-Fijians, the descendants of indentured workers brought to Fiji by the British as cheap labour for colonial sugarcane plantations. Hindus started arriving in Fiji starting in 1879 and continuing through 1920, when Britain abolished the slavery-like indenture system. Fiji identifies people as "Indo-Fijians" if they can trace their ancestry to the Indian subcontinent, Hindus form about 27.9% the population of Fiji.
The Fijian coup d'état of December 2006 was a coup d'état in Fiji carried out by Commodore Frank Bainimarama, Commander of the Republic of Fiji Military Forces (RFMF), against Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase and President Josefa Iloilo. It was the culmination of a political crisis that started the previous year, when the Qarase government introduced three bills to the Fijian Parliament. The Qoliqoli, Land Tribunal, and Reconciliation, Tolerance, and Unity Bills dealt with the ongoing ethnic conflicts in Fiji and the aftermath of the 2000 coup, and were considered to be pro-ethnic Fijian. Bainimarama presented the government with a list of demands on October 16 that included withdrawing the bills. Attempts at negotiation failed and the military launched the coup on 4 December. Parliament was dissolved, Qarase and his cabinet were dismissed, and some civilian officials were placed under house arrest. After the Great Council of Chiefs refused to appoint a cabinet friendly to the military, Bainimarama reached an understanding with Iloilo and reinstated him as President on 4 January 2007. Iloilo then appointed Bainimarama acting Prime Minister in charge of the Interim Cabinet.
The Election Massacre of 1874, or Coup of 1874, took place on election day, November 3, 1874, near Eufaula, Alabama in Barbour County. Freedmen comprised a majority of the population and had been electing Republican candidates to office. Members of an Alabama chapter of the White League, a paramilitary group supporting the Democratic Party's drive to regain political power in the county and state, used firearms to ambush black Republicans at the polls.
Ratu Rakuita Saurara Vakalalabure is a Fijian lawyer and former politician who served as Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives of Fiji from 2001 to 2004. In August 2004 he was convicted of participation in the 2000 Fijian coup d'état and sentenced to six years' imprisonment. He was the son of Ratu Tevita Vakalalabure, who served in both houses of Parliament from the 1970s to the 1990s.
Jale Baba is a Fijian businessman and political organizer. A forestry graduate of the Australian National University, he worked for Fiji Pine Limited for more than 20 years, before leaving in 1999 to start his own company. He also served as the general secretary and campaign director of the Soqosoqo Duavata ni Lewenivanua Party (SDL).
Fiji's fourth constitution, the 2013 Constitution of Fiji, was signed into law by President Ratu Epeli Nailatikau on 6 September 2013, coming into effect immediately. It is the first to eliminate race-based electoral rolls, race-based seat quotas, district-based representation, the unelected upper chamber, and the role of the hereditary Council of Chiefs. It vests sole legislative authority in a single-chamber, 50-seat, at-large Parliament, to be first convened following general elections in 2014. It is also the first ever to grant the right to multiple citizenship, and lowers the voting age to 18.
