Fiji Labour Party
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The Fiji Labour Party (FLP) is a political party in Fiji, which holds observer status with the Socialist International. Most of its support at present comes from the Indo-Fijian community, although it is officially multiracial and its first leader was an indigenous Fijian, Dr. Timoci Bavadra. It is organized into 21 branches.
Early history
The party was launched on 6 July 1985 under the auspices of the Fiji Trades Union Congress, at the Fiji Teachers Association hall in Suva. It faced its first electoral test in municipal elections held three months later, when it won control of the Suva City Council and its candidate, Bob Kumar was elected Lord Mayor. The FLP also won seats on the Labasa, Nadi, and Ba Town Councils, and subsequently secured a seat on the Lautoka City Council at a byelection.
The Fiji Labour Party formed its first government (in coalition with the National Federation Party) after elections in April 1987 gave the coalition 28 of the 52 parliamentary seats. Its election was overwhelmingly supported by Indo-Fijians, but resented by many ethnic Fijians, only 9 percent of whom had voted for the coalition. Strikes and demonstrations followed, and on May 14 the army seized power.
Bavadra's widow, Kuini (later Adi Kuini Speed) took the leadership of the party after her husband's death in 1989, but was deposed in 1991 by Mahendra Chaudhry. She later left the party (in 1995) after objecting to the direction in which Chaudhry was taking it. In the 1990s, the Labour Party lost most of its ethnic Fijian support, and the 1994 election showed that its support among Indo-Fijians was declining as well. It won only 7 seats that year.
The People's Coalition and the Coup of 2000
The fortunes of the Labour Party revived in the later 1990s, as the government of Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka became unpopular amid admissions of womanizing and reports of high-level corruption in his administration. In the election of 1999, the Labour Party swept to power, winning 37 seats in the 71 member House of Representatives, an absolute majority. A further 21 seats were won by its partners in the People's Coalition. Chaudhry became Fiji's first Indo-Fijian Prime Minister.
On 19 May 2000, Chaudhry's government was overthrown in a putsch led by George Speight, a businessman whom the Labour government had fired from management of Fiji's lucrative pine industry. The President, Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, dismissed the government on 27 May, intending to assume executive authority himself in order to confront the rebels, but his plan misfired when he was pressured into resigning two days later by the Military commander, Commodore Frank Bainimarama
Post-coup developments
Elections to restore democracy were held in September 2001. The Labour Party contested the election on a platform calling for an independent inquiry into the 2000 coup, and for compensation to be paid to its victims, including police officers and military personnel. The party also backed medical cover for all workers, and proposed removing Value Added Tax (VAT) from basic items; it had already instigated court proceedings to that effect. The party also proposed a five-year plan for economic recovery. Hurt by intra-party fighting and the defection of key figures including Tupeni Baba, however, the party won the most votes (34.8 percent), but only 28 of the 71 seats in the House of Representatives (Fiji), four less than the United Fiji Party of Laisenia Qarase. The inability of the Labour Party and National Federation Party (NFP) (the only other political party with significant Indo-Fijian support) to reach a deal on exchanging "preferences" in Fiji's transferable voting system, and the NFP's decision to give its preferences to the United Fiji Party instead, probably cost Labour the election: despite their having been allies in the 1980s, the two parties have since become bitter enemies.
Since 2001, Mahendra Chaudhry has survived a leadership challenge and has rebuilt the Labour Party. In recent times, it has won several key byelections, and appears well-placed to mount a credible challenge to the Qarase government in 2006. Chaudhry's strained relationship with Prime Minister Qarase has prevented the Labour Party from being represented in the Cabinet, despite the constitutional stipulation that any political party with more than eight seats in the House of Representatives is entitled to proportionate representation in the Cabinet. On July 18 2003 the Supreme Court of Fiji ruled that Qarase's exclusion of the Labour Party breached the constitution, and demanded that the situation be rectified. Negotiations, appeals, and counter-appeals followed, which delayed the appointment of Labour Party ministers. In June 2004, the Supreme Court ruled that the Labour Party was entitled to 14 out of 30 Cabinet posts. Qarase announced that he would accept and implement the order, but his refusal to include Chaudhry himself in any cabinet lineup continued to stall negotiations about the composition of the cabinet, until Chaudhry announced towards the end of 2004 that the Labour Party was no longer interested in joining the government, and would remain in opposition for the remainder of the parliamentary term.
On 7 July 2005, the Labour Party suspended all of its councillors on the Lautoka City Council, following a scandal in which councillors were found to have granted taxi bases to relatives and colleagues. Those suspended were the Deputy Mayor, Vijend Verma, Torika Ram, Aruna Devi, Atish Lekh Ram, Sunia Kunawave, Pravin Naidu, Hari Narayan, Divendra Chandra and Dhurup Chand. The last four submitted in their resignations from the Labour Party, saying they wanted nothing more to do with it. Naidu said he was resigning from the party in protest against the suspensions, which he said were a public relations ploy. The Labour Party is thought to be facing a stiff challenge to its control of the council in the upcoming municipal elections, due on 22 October, from the new Sugar City Ratepayers Alliance.
Towards 2006
At its conference on 28 July 2005, the Labour Party approved a platform for the election due in 2006. The platform calls for strategies to be enacted to ensure annual economic growth of 6 percent, price reductions for basic food items, and incentives for indigenous landowners to develop and profit from their land. The party also advocates electoral reform, calling for the abolition or at least the reduction of Communal constituencies, which are reserved for candidates and electors enrolled as members of specific ethnic groups.
The FLP has been exploring coalition possibilities with other parties ahead of the election. Fiji's instant run-off voting system, known locally as the alternative vote, allows votes for a low-polling candidate to be transferred to other candidates, following an order specified by the candidate, which may be customized by the individual voter. Most political parties are seeing coalition arrangements that will enable them to maximize their chances.
Deputy Leader Poseci Bune announced on 3 October that the FLP would attempt to broaden its appeal to indigenous Fijians by fielding more indigenous candidates than in previous elections. The final decision about what seats to contest would be made after the conclusion of negotiations with potential coalition partners, such as the NAPF and the UPP. On 10 October, Mahendra Chaudhry announced that 222 applications had been received for the 71 parliamentary constituencies, many of them indigenous. He was not surprised, he said, by the increasing interest shown by indigenous Fijians, whom he described as "frustrated" with the SDL government. He also welcomed what he said was a good number of prospective female candidates, saying that more women were needed in an area that was dominated by men.
Negotiations with the NFP
On 18 August 2005, officials of the FLP and the National Federation Party (NFP) held what they described as a "courtesy call". Preferential voting was among the topics discussed, but no serious negotiations were entered into, with both parties indicating that such a move would be premature. Several major news services reported in early September, however, that the two parties were close to reaching a deal. Comments by FLP officials led credence to these rumours, but on 7 September, the NFP President, Raman Pratap Singh, denied that any such agreement was imminent, stating that the NFP had held no talks with FLP officials on any cooperative arrangements. NFP secretary Pramod Rae thought likewise: "We are open to discussion," he said. "But at this stage there is nothing. We will have to see what their party policies are, if they are similar then we will share preferences." On 3 October, however, Rae said that although a final decision had not been made, sentiment within the NFP was leaning towards contesting the 2006 election alone, rather than aligning itself with either the FLP or the ruling United Fiji Party.
Chaundry claimed on 19 October that NFP officials were unwilling to meet their FLP counterparts, and that the FLP would therefore concentrate on trying to maximize its own vote in the first count, rather than rely on votes transferred from other parties. Then, on 4 November, he rebuffed what he said was an NFP overture to exchange preferences in seven safe Indian communal constituencies. Speaking at three sugar cane farming settlements in Ba Province, he said that what the NFP really wanted was for the FLP to give them those seven seats, all of which are presently held by the FLP. "They want something for nothing and their proposal is simply not on," Chaudhry said. However, NFP Assistant General Secretary Kamal Iyer denied that his party had presented any such proposal to the FLP, or to any party for that matter.
Negotiations with NAP, UPP
The FLP is also attempting to negotiate coalition preferences with the National Alliance Party (NAPF) and the United Peoples Party. UPP leader Mick Beddoes was hopeful, but cautioned that his party would not accept any deal that was not favourable to UPP candidates. On 7 October, however, he revealed that the UPP and the FLP were close to finalizing a draft agreement for consideration, and on 16 October he announced that the UPP executive had approved an electoral pact with the FLP the day before. "We share similar positions on issues of unemployment, poverty alleviation, health and other areas. It is also based on our belief in the rights of all our citizens and their need for equality under the law," Beddoes said, explaining his agreement with the FLP.