Lessons of the Past Shape Rabuka’s Future Plans
Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka’s welcoming attitude to the Fiji Sun on Sunday night underscores the positive direction his Government will take in handling the news media.
Experience has taught him that there is nothing to gain by being hostile to the media. During his political career, Mr Rabuka has used his charisma to maintain an opendoor media policy.
It is also appropriate that he is the Minister for Information and calls the shots on the narrative his coalition Government will use in relying on the media to disseminate information.
His deputies, Manoa Kamikamica and Viliame Gavoka share the same media sentiments of Mr Rabuka. The third deputy, Professor Biman Prasad, who was hostile to some of the mainstream media like the Fiji Sun, seems to be changing his stand.
He admitted that the exchanges he used to have with the former Attorney General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum in Parliament were not personal and thanked him for his contribution. Mr Rabuka also acknowledged the service of his predecessor, Voreqe Bainimarama, and committed his coalition Government to build on it.
Mr Rabuka, 74, knows that this could be his last hurrah – his last throw of the dice before he bows out of politics. He is going to implement changes he could not do when he was Prime Minister the first time for multiple reasons. He will compensate for things he could not do in the past wherever it is possible.
Mr Rabuka, in his interview with the Fiji Sun, spoke in a firm but conciliatory tone explaining what they would do in the first 100 days.
After a rollercoaster journey, he is lapping up a fairytale ending to a political journey that had its fair share of hits and bumps including a number of years in the political wilderness.
This is his second crack at the country’s to job. In the first time, he did not perform as he would have liked. The ghost of his military coups in 1987 followed him as he switched from military to civilian leadership even after several public apologies.
He paid the high price in the 1999 election when his Soqosoqo ni Vakavulewa ni Taukei Government in coalition with the National Federation Party lost to Mahendra Chaudhry’s Fiji Labour Party.
The Christian Alliance Matanitu Vanua (CAMV) desserted him and later aligned itself with the Soqosoqo ni Duavata ni Lewenivanua. From then on he was on his own after the demise of the SVT, drifting into the wilderness.
SODELPA salvaged him from the wilderness. Mr Rabuka was approached to rejoin SODELPA after he failed to secure a ticket in the candidate selection for the 2014 election. In 2016, he was approached in a traditional manner by a delegation dispatched by his chief, Ratu Naiqama Lalabalavu, the Tui Cakau (Paramount Chief of Cakaudrove), former SODELPA Opposition leader, now the new Speaker of Parliament.
Mr Rabuka was invited to contest the party leader post during the impending resignation of Ro Teimumu Kepa. She was forced by a party constitutional change to step down because SODELPA lost the 2014 election.
Mr Rabuka won the party leader contest by a whisker against Mr Gavoka and led SODELPA in the 2018 election which they lost narrowly.
In 2019, Mr Rabuka went for a second term but lost the election to Mr Gavoka. He subsequently resigned from the party and Parliament and set up his own party, The People’s Alliance.
It has been an incredible comeback by a veteran politician who has used his experience to be PM again. This time watch him deliver his promises to the people and bury a past that has haunted him for 35 years.