Birds of a feather
Timoci Gaunavinaka, Nausori
The allegations raised by Opposition political parties in regard to the election process is a desperate attempt to discredit the upcoming election and its eventual results. Various opinion polls survey done in the past 12 months suggest a landslide victory for the ruling FijiFirst Party. This is not an easy thing to swallow, especially after you have been so engrossed in manipulating facts and spreading lies about the Government.
The opposition parties are already working on “Plan B” sensing the most likely result that a FijiFirst landslide victory is going to shatter their “Plan A” dreams to pieces. They today pretend to preach free and fair election as if they are experts on the topic and have perfect track records on the issue. They hide the truth from the people. The truth about how elections were done when they were in power and the reason the FijiFirst Government is now doing so much to prepare people for a genuinely free and fair election.
The Fiji Sun dated Thursday, May 11, 2006, has a front page headline, “Poll officials reject 120 ballot boxes” refereeing to the incident that happened in Nadi where 120 ballot boxes from 24 polling stations were received without labels.
A day earlier, the Fiji Sun front page headline read “Ballot boxes breach baffles Karavaki”.
This states that some ballot boxes were transported for many kilometres from one location to another without Police supervision, breaching the electoral law.
On another Fiji Sun news headline, “SDL backers chase NFP voters from grog party” an incident that happened at Waidalice District School.
In some polling stations, the polling started a day early, but only SDL knew about it and other parties were not informed. Qarase was recorded saying that if an IndoFijian (referring to Chaudhry) was elected, the events of May, 2000 would be repeated.
It was this shameful election process that brought SDL (now SODELPA) to power. I still have newspaper photos showing Mahen Chaudhary being held hostage in Parliament by George Speight before Bainimarama negotiated his release. Speight’s elder brother later became a Minister in Qarase’s SDL government. Mr Chaudhry was first held hostage in Rabuka’s 1987 coup along with Dr. Timoci Bavadra, the stepdad of Tupou Draunidalo. Tupou's biological dad was a senior military officer in Rabuka's 1987 coup and later became an Ambassador in the Qarase Government.
Today I find it amazing that all these people (Qarase, Mahen, Rabuka, and now Biman) who “once upon a time” had opposing political ideologies are now working together like a tight knit family with the single target to oust Bainimarama’s FijiFirst.
They do not care about the needs and lives of the people that the Bainimarama Government has tremendously improved.
They do not care about the huge improvement to our infrastructure and economy. They do not care about national stability Fiji First has brought.
Today they have all showed us their true colours confirming the saying, “Birds of a feather flock together’.