FIJI, March 23, 2001: Last May’s coup toppled the democratically-elected government, but Fiji’s caretaker Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase announced a two-week period for the elections starting August 25 to enable citizens in remote islands to vote. He said the country’s president, Ratu Josefa Iloilo, had set the date for polls for the 71-seat parliament. Qarase took charge last year in an interim government appointed by the military under a deal with nationalist rebels, who had demanded the multi-ethnic constitution be scrapped and ethnic Indians barred from power. The new government — made up of indigenous Fijians — was declared illegal by the Court of Appeal this month, but was later reinstated by Mr Iloilo. The elections will be seen as a key test of the former British colony’s determination to return to democratic government. Ethnic Indians make up 44% of Fiji’s 800,000-strong population.
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