Dear Sir,

According to news reports Mr Aiyaz Khaiyum is reported to be justifying his remaining as Minister for Elections while also being General Secretary to the proposed Fiji First Party by claiming that Rabuka in 1999 and Qarase in 2001 and 2006 were also in a similar position.

While it might raise some eyebrows a teensy weensy bit to see Khaiyum justifying his behaviour today by referring to similar behaviour by previously maligned “old politicians”, there are some profound differences, other than age and maturity.

Rabuka and Qarase were lawfully elected Members of Parliament, Ministers and Prime Ministers while Khaiyum holds all his ministerial positions courtesy of Rear Admiral Bainimarama’s illegal military coup and an unelected government.

Rabuka’s and Qarase’s governments annually published all the Auditor General Reports on their respective governments’ revenue collection, expenditure and public debt borrowing, thereby showing their willingness to be accountable to the voters (and taxpayers) of Fiji.

In contrast, Bainimarama and Khaiyum, arrogantly refuse to release the Auditor General Reports, showing their utter contempt for the basic principle of accountability of all Ministers (including the Minister for Elections) to tax-payers for the last eight years (two normal terms of government), and also suggesting to voters with any active brain cells, that this government has a lot to hide.

There is therefore a mountain of difference between an elected accountable Minister of Elections holding a political party position, and an unelected and unaccountable Minister such as Mr Khaiyum.

Even more so when the same Minister for Elections (Khaiyum) is also the source of a totally unreasonable and unpopular Electoral Decree and Constitution, which has been unilaterally imposed on the voters of Fiji, supposedly setting the election rules, but which apparently cannot be applied to Bainimarama’s yet- to-be-registered Party, its yet-to-be-confirmed Party Leader, and yet-to-be-confirmed Secretary General Khaiyum. Khaiyum also has appointed his own personal choice of Supervisor of Elections who does not have the slightest chance of being called “old” anything.

This is like the manager of a street fighter insisting on being the referee of a boxing match with the opponents having to follow all the Queensberry rules set by the manager himself, with the rules not applying to his own street fighter.

Or perhaps a more colourful analogy splashed with lots of red, this situation is comparable to a smooth and suave Count Dracula insisting on being the General Manager of the Blood Bank.

Professor Wadan Narsey 
Suva

I’m 83.  Except for brief period in the 50s when I was doing my National Service, I’ve worked hard since I was 17.  Except for some serious health challenges, I put in 50-hour weeks, and didn’t call in sick in nearly 40 years. 

I made a reasonable salary, but I didn’t inherit my job or my income, and I worked to get where I am.  Given the economy, it looks as though retirement was a bad idea, and I’m tired.  Very tired.

I’m tired of being told that I have to “spread the wealth” to people who don’t have my work ethic.  I’m tired of being told the government will take the money I earned, by force if necessary, and give it to people too lazy to earn it.

I’m tired of being told that Islam is a “Religion of Peace,” when every day I can read dozens of stories of Muslim men killing their sisters, wives and daughters for their family “honour”; of Muslims rioting over some slight offence;

of Muslims murdering Christian and Jews because they aren’t “believers”; of Muslims burning schools for girls; of Muslims stoning teenage rape victims to death for “adultery”; of Muslims mutilating the genitals of little girls; all in the name of Allah, because the Qur’an and Shari’a law tells them to.

I’m tired of being told that out of “tolerance for other cultures” we must let Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries use our oil money to fund mosques and madrassa Islamic schools to preach hate in Australia, New Zealand, UK, America and Canada, while no one from these countries are allowed to fund a church, synagogue or religious school in Saudi Arabia or any other Arab country to teach love and tolerance.

I’m tired of being told I must lower my living standard to fight global warming, which no one is allowed to debate.

I’m tired of being told that drug addicts have a disease, and I must help support and treat them, and pay for the damage they do.  Did a giant germ rush out of a dark alley, grab them, and stuff white powder up their noses or stick a needle in their arm while they tried to fight It off?

I’m tired of hearing wealthy athletes, entertainers and politicians of all parties talking about innocent mistakes, stupid mistakes or youthful mistakes, when we all know they think their only mistake was getting caught. 

I’m tired of people with a sense of entitlement, rich or poor.

I’m really tired of people who don’t take responsibility for their lives and actions.  I’m tired of hearing them blame the government, or discrimination or big-whatever for their problems.

I’m also tired and fed up with seeing young men and women in their teens and early 20s be-deck themselves in tattoos and face studs, thereby making themselves un-employable and claiming money from the Government.

Yes, I’m damn tired.  But I’m also glad to be 83.  Because, mostly, I’m not going to have to see the world these people are making.  I’m just sorry for my granddaughter and their children.  Thank God I’m on the way out and not on the way in.

There is no way this will be widely publicised, unless each of us sends it on!  This is your chance to make a difference.

If you don’t forward this you are part of the problem”.

Editor, let’s be quite clear about this new Party; ‘Fiji First’ is the name of the political party that was registered under the 1997 Constitution and has 20 or so founding members. The leader of the Party is Anit Singh.

The Party was founded as a result of human rights violations inflicted upon the people of Muaniweni in 2000 after Speight’s takeover of government. Even the police and military failed the Muaniweni people by refusing to protect them. Instead they were rescued and protected at the Sanatan Dharam school in Lautoka by a group of outraged Fiji people calling themselves the ‘Fiji Human Rights Group’ ( and not to be confused with ‘Fiji Human Rights Group NZ Inc’ which was a NZ off-shoot much later for the purpose of raising funds).

Anyone searching the Fiji media archives on the relevant dates (June-August 2000) will know who these individuals, taking up a protective champion role for the Muaniweni people, were. The Muaniweni people, led by the Fiji Human Rights Group and the Fiji Human Rights Commission in June 2000, took their human rights violations to court under the name of ‘Chandrika Prasad v the Republic of Fiji’ and won it in the High Court and in 2001 in the Court of Appeal. This case brought the 1997 Constitution back and restored it to the people of Fiji.

Eventually this process led to the founding of the ‘Fiji First Party’ with two of the original Fiji Human Rights Group in it as founding members.

Bainimarama has taken advantage of the fact that the leader of the Fiji First Party, Anit Singh, chose not to engage in the up-coming election under dubious decrees and a Constitution whose legitimacy is in question. The fact that Bainimarama took (Fiji First would say ‘stole’) the Fiji First name belonging to a marginalised human rights victim group in Muaniweni is a reprehensible and disgusting act, similar to his government breaching the contractual rights of FNPF pensioners.

But can we expect anything else from such a person who surrounds himself with the incompetent and vindictive legal advisers he has? Shame on Bainimarama for not recognising that the lack of integrity of his advisers now reflects badly on him. People expected such great things from him in 2007.