Ratu Jone Navakamocea is a Fijian chief and politician. A member of the Soqosoqo Duavata ni Lewenivanua (SDL) Party, he won the Serua Navosa Open Constituency in the 2006 Parliamentary election and was subsequently appointed State Minister for National Planning in the government of Laisenia Qarase. Following a military coup on 5 December 2006, he was appointed Minister for Local Government, Urban Development and Public Utilities in the interim Cabinet formed by Commodore Frank Bainimarama, who had led the coup. Navakamocea was thus one of the few members of the Qarase government to be given a post in the interim government.
In August 2006, Navakamocea called for the term Indo-Fijian to be banned, saying it amounted to identity theft. The minister actually was against using India-Fijian term to describe the Indian ethnics in Fiji. "We should use the word Indian to describe an Indian of Indian origin or ethnicity and Fijian for an indigenous Fijian," was quoted in Fiji Newspaper report by Jone Navakamocea. His core idea was that it is legally and politically incorrect to accept Fijian-Indian term as an ethnicity. Refusing being a racist, he also stated that this term was created by Indian academics for the purpose of "Fijanising " the Indian ethnicity in Fiji. [1]
The Rt. Hon. Mahendra Chaudhry is an Indo-Fijian and the leader of the Fiji Labour Party. Following a historic election in which he defeated the long-time former leader, Sitiveni Rabuka, the former trade union leader became Fiji's first Indo-Fijian Prime Minister on 19 May 1999, but exactly one year later, on 19 May 2000 he and most of his Cabinet were taken hostage by coup leader George Speight, in the Fiji coup of 2000. Unable to exercise his duties, he and his ministers were sacked by President Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara on 27 May; Mara intended to assume emergency powers himself but was himself deposed by the military leader, Commodore Frank Bainimarama. After 56 days in captivity, Chaudhry was released on 13 July and subsequently embarked on a tour of the world to rally support. He was one of the leading voices raised in opposition to the Qarase government's proposed Reconciliation and Unity Commission, which he said was just a mechanism to grant amnesty to persons guilty of coup-related offences. In January 2007 he was appointed as Minister of Finance, Sugar Reform Public Enterprise and National Planning in the interim Cabinet of Commodore Frank Bainimarama, following another coup. Chaudhry was also co-chair of the task force focusing on economic growth within the National Council for Building a Better Fiji. In 2008, he left the government and became an outspoken critic of it.
Laisenia Qarase is a Fijian politician. He served as the sixth Prime Minister of Fiji from 2000 to 2006. After the military quashed the coup that led to the removal of Mahendra Chaudhry, Qarase joined the Interim Military Government as a financial adviser on 9 June 2000, until his appointment as Prime Minister on 4 July. He won two parliamentary elections, but a military coup removed him from power on 5 December 2006. He was later imprisoned on corruption charges brought by the Military-backed regime.
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 draws its support mainly from indigenous Fijiians.
The Prime Minister of the Republic of Fiji is the head of government of Fiji. The Prime Minister is appointed by the President under the terms of the 2013 Constitution of Fiji.
Brigadier-General Ratu Epeli Ganilau, MC, MSD, is a former Fijian military officer and a retired politician. His career previously encompassed such roles as Commander of the Fiji Military Forces and Chairman of the Bose Levu Vakaturaga. On 15 January 2007 he was sworn in as Minister for Fijian Affairs in the interim Cabinet formed in the wake of the military coup which deposed the Qarase government on 5 December 2006.
Josaia Voreqe Bainimarama CF, MSD, OStJ, known commonly as Frank Bainimarama and sometimes by the chiefly title Ratu, is a Fijian naval officer and politician who has been Prime Minister of Fiji since 2007. He was the Commander of the Fijian Military Forces from 1999 to 2014. While holding the office of Prime Minister, he has temporarily held various ministerial portfolios: Information, Home Affairs, Immigration, Public Service, Indigenous and Multi-Ethnic Affairs, Finance, and Foreign Affairs.
Ratu Tevita Momoedonu is a Fijian chief and has served as the fifth Prime Minister of Fiji twice – each time extremely briefly. Both appointments were to get around constitutional technicalities; his first term of office – on 27 May 2000 lasted only a few minutes. His second term – from 14 to 16 March 2001 was for two days. He subsequently served his country as Ambassador to Japan. Using his chiefly title of "Taukei Sawaieke", he later led pushes for the Yasana of Ba to secede from the Burebasaga and Kubuna Confederacies to form their own fourth confederacy under the Tui Vuda, Ratu Josefa Iloilo, who died in 2011.
Ratu Inoke Kubuabola is a Fijian politician and Cabinet Minister. He is currently the Minister for Foreign Affairs.
Fijians are a nation and ethnic group native to Fiji, who speak Fijian and share a common history and culture.
The Fiji coup of 2000 was a complicated affair involving a civilian coup d'état by hardline i-Taukei nationalists against the elected government of a Fijian of Indian Descent Prime Minister, Mahendra Chaudhry, on 19 May 2000, the attempt by President Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara to assert executive authority on 27 May, and his own resignation, possibly forced, on 29 May. An interim government headed by Commodore Frank Bainimarama was set up, and handed power over to an interim administration headed by Ratu Josefa Iloilo, as President, on 13 July.
Since attaining independence from the United Kingdom on 10 October 1970, Fijian history has been marked by exponential economic growth up to 1987, followed by relative stagnation, caused to a large extent by political instability following two military coups in 1987 and a civilian putsch in 2000. This was followed by another military coup in 2006. Rivalry between indigenous Fijians and Indo-Fijians, rather than ideological differences, have been the most visible cleavage of Fijian politics.
Fiji–India relations refer to foreign relations between Fiji and India. Fiji has a high commission in New Delhi, whilst India has a high commission in Suva.
Ilaitia Bulidiri Tuisese is a former Fijian politician, who served in Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase's Cabinet from 2000 to 2006.
Lekh Ram Vayeshnoi, is a Fijian politician of Indian descent. He was one of the youngest members to be elected into Parliament in 1992. He has represented the Nadroga Indian Communal Constituency, which he won for the Fiji Labour Party (FLP) in the parliamentary elections of 1992, 1994, 1999, 2001, and 2006. After the 1999 election he was appointed Assistant Minister in Prime Minister's Office. He was appointed Minister for Youth and Sports and Employment Opportunities in the interim administration that followed the military coup that took place on 5 December 2006. He was born to a family of Rajasthani descent.
The Fijian coup d'état of December 2006 occurred as a continuation of the pressure which had been building since the military unrest of the 2000 Fijian coup d'état and 2005–06 Fijian political crisis.
The People's Charter for Change, Peace and Progress was a proposed legal document which would have complemented the 1997 Constitution of Fiji. It would have established compulsory guidelines for any government policy in Fiji over the coming years. The People's Charter was due to be completed and come into force prior to the scheduled 2014 general election.
Fiji – United States relations have improved significantly since Fiji's elections in September 2014, which restored a democratically elected government to Fiji for the first time since 2006. The United States had opposed Fiji's unelected government, which came to power through a military coup in December 2006.
Indo-Fijians or Indian-Fijians, are Fiji citizens who are fully or partially of Indian descent, which includes descendants who trace their heritage from various regions of the Indian subcontinent. Although Indo-Fijians constituted a majority of the Fijian population from 1956 through the late 1980s, discrimination and the resulting brain drain has resulted in them numbering 313,798 (37.6%) out of a total of 827,900 people living in Fiji today.
Ratu Josefa Iloilovatu Uluivuda, CF, MBE, MSD, KStJ was the 3rd President of Fiji from 2000 until 2009, excluding a brief period from 5 December 2006 until 4 January 2007. He held the traditional title of Tui Vuda, the paramount chief of the Vuda district in Ba Province on Fiji's northwest coast. Like many Fijian people, he rarely used his surname and was known simply as Josefa Iloilo. He announced on 28 July 2009 that he would be leaving office on 30 July. At the age of 88, he was the world's oldest head of state.
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