RN: Was the Fiji Labour Party ready for an election when the Prime Minister announced that it would be held in May? Do you think the PM called the elections early because the indications were the economy was going to get worse?

MC: To answer your first question we have been campaigning all along. We knew that elections were due in 2006 and it would be called anytime although it was expected to be by August. So we were ready but the Elections Office was definitely not ready and the Electoral Commission I think was ill advised because we were met with a lot of difficulties in obtaining the necessary records and documents from the Electoral Office on time. There were innumerable errors in the compilation of electoral rolls. Then they botched up the publication of preferences and also party symbols and spelling errors in the ballot papers. It showed that the Elections Office was completely unprepared and inefficient and incompetent. This is my sixth General Election and I've never seen the Elections Office so disorganised. When we get into Govt we have to do something about it.

RN: And do you think the elections were called early because of indications that the economy wasn't doing too well?

MC:Oh! Yes, indeed because if the SDL had called elections by June this year they would have been forced to devalue the currency. Indeed we are in a very serious state as far as the economy is concerned. So one of the reasons was that before the collapse actually took place, they wanted to have an election.

RN: Mr Chaudhry should the FLP form the next Govt can you categorically state that VAT (Value Added Tax) will not be increased in your time in office?

MC: We will not increase the Value Added Tax. I think 12.5% is already at a high level taking into account the per capita income of our people here so we will leave it at that. But we will certainly concentrate on better tax compliance to get people who are currently perhaps not in the tax net to bring them into the tax and then make sure that those who have to pay tax do pay tax and not avoid tax.

RN: What about increasing taxes to meet your campaign promises?

MC: Well, I think we can meet our campaign promises through prudent management of government finances, feeding our corruption mismanagement abuse. These factors cost tens of millions of dollars to the taxpayer each year. If we are able to eliminate these we are in a position to deliver on our promises. We will also look at as I said better tax compliance. So we definitely are not in for increasing taxes.

RN: Moving to the issue of land. This has been a monkey on the backs of previous governments and political parties. Do you think this is an issue that can be resolved and what would it take to be resolved?

MC: Our concentration will be on using the land for productive purposes. I think that is where we need to concentrate and we will do that. It will also result in developing resources of the indigenous people. And through that they will be able to farm themselves and lease surplus land to others who may want to farm. It will lift the rural economy. It will boost our agricultural production. There is a lot of work to be done in the agricultural sector and this is part of our programme to concentrate and focus on land development and assisting the landowners to develop their rich resources so they can also contribute to the economy and put money in their pockets.

RN: In hindsight, Mr Chaudhry do you think the land issue could have been resolved in the last five years of the Government and you in Opposition.

MC: Well the SDL government did not have the will to resolve it because they insisted on their own solution. They were not prepared to negotiate. They just wanted to propose NLTA (Native Landlord and Trust Act) on the farmers and tenants and of course this was not acceptable to the farming community. So there was no will to negotiate in good faith and this why this issue is still unresolved. But as I said it really doesn't matter under which legislation land is leased out. You've got to convince and persuade the farmers that the legislation will also protect their interest. And in the present time the farming community feels very safe with ALTA.

RN: The NLTB or Land Use Commission which is the answer to the land problems?

MC: The NLTB is the trustee of the land which belongs to native landowners and any organisation or government will have to deal with them in terms of land use as well. But we are looking at also active participation of the resource owners, the landowners themselves. They are real owners. The NLTB is merely a trustee for them. But so far in our view the landowners themselves have not been closely involved in the decision making processes in the NLTB.

RN: A question for you personally, how long do you plan to stay in politics?

MC: Well I would have retired from politics in 2004 if they had let us run for five years in 1999.The next election would have been in 2004 and I'd planned that I'd hang my boots then because I'd have brought the country to a point, it had already taken off and it just needed someone to glide it along. But we were not given this opportunity and look at the mess that the SDL have made in the five years. We need to rescue this nation from the mess that it is currently in, and this is why I am still in politics. I don't thing that the SDL or any other party for that matter have the competence, the know how and the expertise to deal with the very serious situation Fiji is in right now. This is why the Labour Party is fighting this election and taking it very seriously because this election is very crucial to Fiji's future.

RN: So we don't expect to see you hanging your boots any time soon? At least in the term of the next government.

MC: That's right, because I'm contesting the elections I intend to stay in politics. For this particular period, five years, and then retire.

RN: What about the PM's term in office. Do you think it should be limited to say 2 terms as in the case of the US presidency?

MC: I think that a lot of things need to be looked at quite aside from limiting the terms of prime minister. I thing it is a good idea and a good concept to have prime minister for two terms. I also feel that five year terms are too long and it should be for four years. Three years is just too short, four years will be just about right for a government. And I think there are other issues with regards too governance which need to be looked at, too see how we work smarter and better.

RC: Mr Chaudhry, you are on record as saying should the Labour party win, and if the caucus picks you to be the prime minister, you will take up the position. Given the discussions on the ethnicity of a PM and security, are you prepared to sacrifice that post and let someone else take over, say Mr (Poseci) Bune or Mr (Krishna) Datt or someone else in the party?

MC: I think it is not the person; it is the party they are targeting. I merely am there as its leader, focus is on me. In 1987 Dr (Timoci) Bavadra was Prime Minister, he was an ethnic Fijian and he was deposed only after a month. So this all done by people with vested interests, people who want to cling to power at any cost. And we can't surrender this country and our people to these reactionary forces. We have to fight them and we have to subdue them.

RN: Mr Chaudhry, what is the future of the Fiji Labour Party? Has the party identified future leaders within its young members or the current members?

MC: Yes, we have a lot of new people in this time who are contesting seats. Some very capable and competent Fijian candidates we have and certainly we have to bring in new blood and you would see that we have brought in a lot of people who are contesting elections for the first time. The party's future looks great and certainly we will not have a leadership crisis.

RN: The SDL had 23 ministers and assistant ministers. Should the FLP form the next Govt , will your cabinet size remain the same or you will do something different, reducing it given that you will have to entertain other parties who get 10 percent of the vote or more?

MC: Well, ours will be a very focused approach. There are a lot of things that we want to do and I want my ministers not to be over burdened. We have to fix the health system here and education infrastructure, these matters need urgent attention. In terms of the number of ministers that will be in cabinet, there is no constitutional bar, there is no cap. But I think around 20 ministers will be about right.

RN: Looking at the future- the next elections, do you think that it should be decided fairly on open seats?

MC: Well I think we should get back to the Reeves' recommendations on the electoral system. Reeves recommended that we have 45 open seats and only 25 communal seats with communal seats disappearing altogether after two general elections. I think that we need to revisit that. It is very unfortunate that the people who were in charge at that time, Mr (Sitiveni) Rabuka and Mr (Jai Ram) Reddy opted to reverse the number of seats that Reeves had recommended. And this we have now 46 communal seats and only 24 Open seats. We will need to certainly look at that because it will be very difficult to move away from communal politics.

RN: And the voting age, do you think that it should be reduced?

MC: Oh Yes! It certainly it should come down to 18. Mind you all parties had recommended to the Reeves Commission, but when actual negotiations took place, they changed their minds and we have 21 as the voting age now. We tried to amend that provision. A bill was being debated in the House but it was defeated. We will certainly be happy to see the voting age reduced to 18 as was recommended in the Reeves report.

RN: Mr Chaudhry another question with regards to what is very close to the heart of a lot of people, which is the unemployment situation as a result of the lack of investment in the country. What are your plans to fix up the economy?

MC: Well we have got it all in our manifesto. We have to first of all convince the investor community that Fiji is a stable place to invest that we practice good governance and we have respect to the rule of law, we have an efficient legal system and also to restore necessary incentives to bring them in and restore investor confidence. So that will be of course the main areas which we will concentrate. Apart from that, we will also focus on rural development in the agricultural sector, because that's where I think that thousands of jobs can be create once we begin investing and developing in the rural sector. We have got to identify the strengths that we have and concentrate on those. We also have to curb youth unemployment. We are proposing a national service scheme that will take them out of the streets and bring them into an arrangement whereby they will be able to do community service and earn a bit of pocket money at the same time and receive training to prepare them for fulltime employment. This sort of scheme is at Singapore and it has worked very effective for them. It also incorporates discipline in the youth at a critical age so they follow the right path rather then being led into activities that puts them into trouble. I think we need to innovate new ways and means of creating employment. Most important thing is to give these youths something to do. As they say an idle mind is the devil's workshop. So if they have something to do you enhance their self esteem and that is very important because there is nothing demoralising then the feeling that you are worthless, so you can't find a job and you are a burden on your parents etc... So we certainly will be concentrating on those. So with good management of the economy, with prudent management of government finances, we will be able to turn the economy around and create jobs and hopefully solve all the social problems that we see today as a result of unemployment.

RN: In terms of health and education, what will the Labour Party do differently?

MC: Well, as I said there are two sectors to health. One is of course preventative and primary healthcare which means that people have to be educated that they must appreciate a healthy lifestyle eat the right sort of foods, have adequate exercise and keep away from getting lifestyle diseases. That we will focus very heavily because I don't think that it is receiving the necessary concentration in the community. We will also try to provide annual checks for all our citizens so that diseases can be detected early and treated. At the moment we find many of these diseases are at an advanced state by the time it is diagnosed it is too late to do anything. The second thing will be the hospital care, the hospital services and curative health care. Here we seen the mess that the SDL has made with our hospitals and health centres. We will need to bring in the private sector, private health care providers, to do the job professionally. That will be our approach. It will be a public/private partnership arrangement whereby this task of providing first class hospital services will be entrusted to the private sector.

RN: On the issue of the numbers migrating, do you think that Australia and New Zealand and other countries that Fiji nationals have settled in are giving back enough aid to the country considering they have benefit enormously from trade and migration?

MC: Yes, of course. We live in a globalised world so we can't stop people from leaving. I don't think they would be leaving us in that many numbers if things were right here if our economy itself were functioning if there were opportunity here. A lot of people leave Fiji with a great deal of regret but they are forced into taking that kind of decision. As to the aid and assistance that Fiji is receiving from Australia and New Zealand, I think there is a lot of room for enhancing that aid and assistance and putting that in the right areas that we need assistance to come to. We should be deciding the type of aid that we need. When we get into government there are matters where serious negotiations will take place between these two nations because there is a huge trade between Fiji and Australia and New Zealand and I think in many respects they owe a lot more to Fiji both in terms to this trade imbalance that I have talked about and also in terms of them draining our skills out of here. But as I said that we live in a globalised world and we need to accept that. And also in terms of ensuring that there is social stability in this country so that we don't have problems like what happened in the Solomons and what happened in Fiji, the two coups.

RN: With regards to the Civil Service, do you think that in its present form it is delivering the goods to the people?

MC: Well I think there is a lot of improvement needed in the civil service. It is costing a fortune and it is lacking in delivery. We have to work much more efficiently, much more productively. We have to bring back work discipline, work ethics which are important in the providing of an efficient public service. The country relies on the public service to deliver and of course deliver smartly and efficiently. And that will be our focus. I think there is a lot of room of improvement there, not only in the public service but also in the private sector; you know the word culture is dead. Virtually dead in both these areas I suppose in many cases because of bad management. The other big problem there is the scale of corruption. We have got to completely weed that out. Unless you get rid of corruption from this country nothing much can be sustain. We propose to bring in very tough legislation for corrupt practises. Very tough legislation indeed with mandatory prison sentences.

RN: Would you open up monopolies to competition….?

MC: Absolutely! Absolutely. We don't believe in monopolies. They are against public interest. We have got to dismantle monopolies and open them up for competition and give the consumers a choice. We will be doing that not only for utilities but also the media area, the television for instance. People here have no choice at the moment. There are TV companies who are ready to come in and invest in Fiji. Why are we stopping them? So defiantly we will move to a free enterprise and free competition environment.

RN: Finally Mr Chaudhry the Labour Party had the opportunity to spend a year in office. Looking back and if your party comes back and forms the new government, is there anything that you will do differently from that one year in office?

MC: Well one year is too short a period to really achieve much. Particularly when you inherit a mess that we are inheriting this time. But I think that we did remarkably well in turning the country around and some people said in some matters we went too fast. I think that is debatable. The point is we have an election manifesto in which we tell the people of Fiji and on that note we get their votes that we will do A, B, C, D, E, F. and we can't just sit back in a relaxed mode and go slow and take a slow pace. Because you need to move this country along as quickly as you possibly can to deal with and alleviate the problems that the people face on a day to day basis. So these are all excuses. The point is what we were doing. Was it wrong or was it right? We are not threatening the rights or ownership of resources of any country. We are simply trying to get those resources put to productive use so that the owners of those resources could benefit from that, which hasn't been happening in Fiji though for so many years. Some people distort this and misrepresent this as going too fast. There has not been much change in our manifesto of 1999 and 2006 because this country simply has not progressed. We have fallen behind by standing still while others have moved ahead of us. So there is a lot of work to do. You have got to work hard and work fast to catch up. You can't just assume a laidback posture and hope to do things. I think that what we have in our manifesto is what we will be attempting to quite honestly and quite seriously and with a commitment to accomplish.