Any difference in opinions and views among the coalition parties is a sign the three-party Coalition Government is working fine, says Fijian academic Professor Steven Ratuva.
The University of Canterbury Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies director made the comments while speaking at the National Federation Party’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations in Rakiraki last weekend.
“Politics has to do with contestation of ideas, contestation of power,” he said.
“Therefore, I think we are on the right track in terms of moving away from fear-based politics into a future in which we all see that there is something for all of us.
“The challenge of the Coalition Government is how do you have a mechanism in place to make sure that they are sustainable, to make sure it is embedded, to make sure it is resilient.
“Because politics is politics — politics allows for differences, politics allows for us to express ideas which may not be comfortable to others.
“All these are what the coalition is trying to go through in terms of their policies and the transformations they are undertaking and carrying out now, one of the challenges for them is to undo a lot of those decrees, undo a lot of those policies, structures which have been there since the last regime came into power.
“How do you do that? One is through changes in the legislation themselves and secondly, how to mobilise people’s consciousness around those changes.
“There will be resistance and resistance is normal in politics — without resistance, there will be no politics. In recent weeks we heard rumours about coups and here I must thank the Minister for Defence for reaching out to the security forces to address that.
“What is this thing about rumours and coups in Fiji.
“It has developed a particular consciousness where it has been seen as a potential alternative to political change.
“In the case of Fiji, because of that consciousness that is built in us, which has been there and has been deep, whenever there is an election, people just start feeling the consciousness of the potential for a coup to happen.
“How can we talk about the consciousness of coups and the way we see coups as something that we still see, it’s there, lurking around.
“The effects may linger and when the circumstances are right, they might come out again and that is one of the biggest dangers in terms of Fiji’s security and stability in the country.”
