Fiji's opposition National Federation Party warns the country is more divided, more in debt and dictated to than it has ever been.
NFP leader Biman Prasad. Photo: RNZ / Sally Round
Last Saturday, 5 December marked the anniversary of Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama's military coup - the country's fourth coup.
Fourteen years later, NFP leader Biman Prasad says the economy is "floundering because the government has given up".
Prasad said the government had no vision for the future and no plans to meet our deep economic and social problems.
The government promised "true democracy but they consult no one because they do not want to hear dissent or independent views", he said.
"What do we have? A parliamentary dictatorship where even the ministers in their own government know nothing about what is going on.
"They consult no one because they do not want to hear dissent or independent views.
"Town and city council elections are banned because they know the opposition parties will win them."
Prasad said Bainimarama had also promised an end to corruption.
But corruption was worse now than it had ever been, he said.
"FICAC is now investigating an outbreak of scandals in the same town and city councils Bainimarama's government controls.
"The government's so-called 'Bainimarama Boom' is now a national joke.
"Our economic growth has come from debt-fuelled government spending and over-reliance on a tourism industry that is now in mothballs.
"Our national debt is nearly as big as our GDP. The sugar industry is on its knees. The economy has nothing else to fall back on."
Fiji Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama. Photo: AFP
Prasad said Fiji's rates of violence against women and children were some of the highest in the world.
He said this included the country's rates on health particularly non-communicable diseases (NCDs) such as hypertension and diabetes.
The health system was in tatters, he said.
"We have an education system that is failing our young people and deepening poverty.
"Our cherished public institutions - the public service, the police, our constitutional offices, our Parliament are all politicised and bent to the will of two men."
Prasad said Bainimarama had promised 14 years ago that he would not take part in elections after the return to democracy.
Bainimarama had also promised that no military officer would benefit from the military coup, Prasad said.
"Now he is Fiji's highest-ever paid prime minister as his salary exceeds $FJ300,000 and he has collected tens of thousands in travel allowances.
"Yet, tens of thousands of Fiji citizens live in poverty. Many do not even have jobs at the $FJ2.68 minimum wage.
"Frank Bainimarama promised that no-one would sit on more than one government board. But the government boards are now packed with a small and ever-decreasing number of people who are the only ones he and Aiyaz-Sayed Khaiyum can trust.
"Many of them are the same people who have contributed millions of dollars to their Fiji First Party.
"But most importantly, there is no vision for the future. We have a government that has given up, that makes it up as it goes along."
A call for change
Prasad called on the people of Fiji for change.
Every Fijian should want a government in which everyone has their say, he said.
"We want to combine the best ideas and the best people - from all sides in all politics, from all communities and from all walks of life - to deal with our pressing national problems.
"The people of Fiji have no say in in what happens - except, once in four years, their vote.
"We are calling for new leaders to step forward now and help us prepare for the 2022 election.
"We need young people, those who have led in their communities, in the fields of education, social work, business and the professions.
"We need you to step forward. If we want Fiji to prosper and our people to live in a fair and equal society where all are respected and taken care of, there must be change."
We are getting ready, he said, and as a "mighty collective force, we will bring that change".
