Transcript
TUPOU DRAUNIDALO: The National Federation Party has a long history, a very established party and it has a certain appeal and I thought I'd move so that I can reach another group that's quite difficult to move to where we all want to go. It's somewhere that I can be more effective. That's all it is. My skillset is more effective in the new setting if it's registered than it would have been in the National Federation Party. The NFP has its appeal and that appeal I think has increased over the last three years and I'm very happy that it has and I'm sure that it'll gain more when it goes to the elections next year but I find it worrying that other parties in the opposition are not reaching the group that we need to win to get over the line. Looking at those polls it's worrying and I don't think I've minced my words on the idea of another coup maker replacing Mr Bainimarama. I don't think it's good for the government of Fiji that a former coup maker becomes prime minister again, not just because he's a coup maker. His government didn't have a very good record when it left office. It made decisions that when it left office, we had another two and a half coups.
SALLY ROUND: So were you worried the NFP was going to go into coalition with Sodelpa which is the party led by Mr Rabuka.
TD: I'm not going to say anything about the National Federation Party. I'm sorry, you'll have to ask Professor Biman Prasad but to be frank and to be fair, when I left the National Federation Party they had made it very clear they were not going into any coalition with Sodelpa. If that's changed, I don't know but you have to ask the party.
SR: So with the HOPE party, proposed party, because we have to be careful how we describe it, given the laws of Fiji ...
TD: Yes
SR: What do you think are the prospects for this party gaining enough seats to put Fiji First out of power?
TD: The proposed party hopes to convince as many of that 30 percent, sorry 40 percent of 'undecideds' as possible to vote for it because we are different both to Mr Rabuka and different to Mr Bainimarama and all of Fiji can see what both gentlemen have been able to achieve and what they haven't been able to achieve. Our government is a mess and I will make sure the people of Fiji will get to know who's responsible for that.
SR: Are you concerned at all though that by bringing in a new party, there will be this split opposition.
TD: You know if the Tebbutt polls came out and said the opposition parties jointly have at least 30 percent of the support out there, you know there might be something to say about that, about splitting opposition votes but those polls confirmed what we've been hearing from the ground that there's a large number of undecided and the opposition parties who were talking coalition, their numbers would have amounted to 11 and 13 percent. I've tried to tell Sodelpa and its executives on Twitter and other places, 'don't flatter yourselves, we're not coming to split your 11 percent'. We want the 40. That's what we're going for and it would be nice if the prime minister would lose a bit more of his 37 percent. That's what we hope that the new party, once registered, if the Supervisor registers us, will get to. I think the more parties the merrier. It's a democracy because I mean that gives people a variety to choose from and I think people, now know, you know you've got to look at what the party stands for and usually you gauge that from what the leader is about, what the leader has spoken and fought for for the last however many years and they will choose.
