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Former Vice President Ratu Jone Madraiwiwi says there’s a critical need for dialogue and engagement in a forum that the interim Government and its political opponents can participate without preconditions.
Speaking at the Fiji Institute of Accountants Congress on the theme creating a better Fiji at the Shangri Las Fijian Resort, Ratu Joni said the process under the National Council for Building a Better Fiji could continue to develop the principles for a charter for good government.
“But there has to be another means for finding a common ground,” he said.
And he called upon the interim regime, “as the party holding the reins of power, to engage.”
He said that without this happening, the country will continue to drift divided and fractured as ever.
“A Charter would then be imposed as would a new electoral system and the Constitution abrogated to all the implementation of both.”
Ratu Joni said the implications internally and internationally hardly bore thinking about.
“The tragedy is that many beneficial features in the proposed Charter and the electoral system would be discounted and discredited because of the manner of their implementation.”
Meanwhile, he said, there was a need now to begin discussions on the role of the military, adding that since December 5, 2006, the extent to which they have entered the public service was a concern.
He said it has blurred the boundaries between the former as a disciplined service and the latter as a civilian organisation.
“In practical terms, this is just as critical as the drafting of the Charter,” Ratu Joni said.
“It is in the military that the ever present threats of coups will lie.
“The commitment of the present military leadership to abiding by the charter when it is completed will only last their tenure in control.
“Their successors may have other ideas. So it is envisaged that these issues will require sensitive handling.”
Ratu Joni said the military had come to see itself as having a part to play in national affairs.
“Its complete return to barracks may have to be gradual. A generation of military officers has grown to maturity in the shadows of four coups,” he added.
“They will not be easily weaned off their appetite for more.”
