FIJI, May 22, 2002: Fiji Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase has sparked a furious row by claiming a coup two years ago was part of a plan by God to depose the country’s Indian-led government. Critics claim his remarks amount to blasphemy. “The SDL coalition won because it was God’s plan,” Qarase said. “I believe God wanted to terminate that government.” In the coup, Speight and a gang of soldiers stormed parliament and took Mahendra Chaudhry, Fiji’s first ethnic Indian leader, and his government hostage. The military later intervened and installed Qarase as prime minister before eventually organizing elections last year, which Qarase’s Soqosoqo Duavatani Lewenivanua (SDL) party won. Indigenous Fijians, the bulk of them Methodists, make up 51 per cent of Fiji’s 800,000 people. Indians, predominantly Hindu, account for 44 per cent, and racial tension has been a constant source of political instability in the Pacific nation.
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