STATEMENT FROM THE FIJIAN GOVERNMENT
The Bainimarama Government commends the British media for revealing corruption in the British Government. Fiji has the toughest anti-corruption record in the South Pacific.
However, the effort to clean up their government is no excuse for the astonishing ignorance displayed by the British media and, regrettably, the British Foreign Office Minister, Hugo Swire, in his answers to questions in the House of Commons posed by the now disgraced MP, Patrick Mercer.
The image of Fiji that is being put forward is rooted in Fiji’s past, not its present. Today, Fiji is on the cusp of finalising a new Constitution, and is preparing for democratic parliamentary elections next year. These elections will be held for the first time on the basis of equal votes of equal value instead of the racially-weighted system bequeathed to Fiji by Britain at
In addition, four political parties have been registered thus far and are participating in the public debate about our future. And more than half a million Fijians have been registered to vote using a secure electronic voter registration system.
It is disappointing that there has been little recognition from Fiji’s former colonial ruler of the changes and progress being made by the Bainimarama Government to establish a modern, progressive state. The uninformed attitudes of the British Government and media appear to be still coloured by the patronising attitudes of the past, completely neglecting the changes underway in Fijitoday.
MINFO