Fijian Alliance

The Fijian Alliance, also known as the Alliance Party, was the ruling political party in Fiji from 1966 to 1987. Founded in the early 1960s, its leader was Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, the founding father of the modern Fijian nation. Widely seen as the political vehicle of the traditional Fijian chiefs, the Alliance Party also commanded considerable support among the Europeans and other ethnic minorities, who, although comprising only 3-4 percent of Fiji's population, were over represented in the parliament (with a third of the seats before 1973, and a sixth thereafter, allocated to them). Indo-Fijians were less supportive, but the Fijian-European block vote kept the Alliance Party in power for more than twenty years.

The rule of the Alliance Party was briefly challenged in the election of March 1977, when a split in the ethnic Fijian vote resulted in the loss of nine seats. The Alliance ended up with 24 seats in the 52-seat parliament, two less than the Indo-Fijian-dominated National Federation Party (NFP). A constitutional crisis developed when, three days after the election, the NFP splintered in a leadership brawl, and the Governor General of Fiji, Ratu Sir George Cakobau, asked the Mara government to remain in power in a caretaker capacity. A second election was held in September that year to resolve the impasse; the Alliance was returned with an unprecedented 36 seats out of 52.

The majority of the Alliance Party was reduced in the 1982 election, but with 28 seats out of 52, it retained office. In April 1987, the party was finally beaten by a multi-racial coalition led by Timoci Bavadra, an ethnic Fijian who nevertheless drew most of his support from the Indo-Fijian population.

After less than a month in office, the new government was deposed in a military coup led by Lieutenant Colonel Sitiveni Rabuka. After several months of turmoil, the former Prime Minister Ratu Mara, the Alliance Party leader, was called back to head a transitional government. As part of a major realignment of Fijian politics, however, the Alliance Party was dissolved. Several political parties today claim to be its successor, among them the present ruling party, the United Fiji Party.

The Alliance Party was considered to be a centre-right party, and was a member of the International Democrat Union, a umbrella-organization of moderate right-wing parties from many countries, including the Republican Party of the United States, the British Conservative Party, and the Australian Liberal Party.

Recently, there have been calls for the Alliance Party to be revived. Spearheading these calls has been Ratu Epeli Ganilau, Chairman of the Great Council of Chiefs from 2001 to 2004, and a son-in-law of the late Ratu Mara, who announced his intention on July 21, 2004 to work to revive the defunct party. Ganilau's announcement found support in a number of quarters, including, perhaps surprisingly, from the National Federation Party, its erstwhile opponent. Speaking on national radio, Prem Singh, the NFP leader, welcomed Ganilau's proposal, saying that Fiji badly needed moderate, multicultural and multiracial political parties to take the country forward. Reaction from the Fijian government of Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase has been less enthusiastic, however; a revived Alliance Party would likely compete with the ruling United Fiji Party for the same constituency. It is speculated that the recent decision of the Cakaudrove Provincial Council to terminate Ganilau's membership of the Great Council of Chiefs may have been influenced by high-level disquiet at his ability to use the Great Council as a platform for his own political ambitions, thereby compromising its neutrality. It remains to be seen whether anything substantive will come of Ganilau's initiative.

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