The prime minister, who has refused to concede, mentioned the navy was deployed to make sure safety.
Fiji’s navy has been known as in to assist police preserve regulation and order after final week’s disputed election that resulted in a hung parliament.
The Pacific nation’s longtime Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama confirmed the transfer on Thursday, citing unsubstantiated experiences of post-vote ethnic violence as the rationale for the navy deployment.
Bainimarama has refused to concede, regardless of rival Sitiveni Rabuka’s Political Alliance social gathering and two different events asserting that they had the numbers to type a coalition and the subsequent authorities.
“As long as it’s our accountability to serve in authorities, we are going to fulfil our obligation to each Fijian’s security,” Bainimarama mentioned in his first public feedback because the December 14 election.
“Stories of harassment suffered by our residents and violence focused at Indo-Fijian properties and companies within the wake of the election are deeply disturbing,” he mentioned in an announcement on Fb.
The choice to name in military and navy personnel was made after police and navy leaders met with Bainimarama, mentioned Police Commissioner Sitiveni Qiliho.
There had been threats made in opposition to minority teams who had been “now residing in concern following latest political developments”, Qiliho added.
These claims had been rubbished by Mahendra Chaudhry, the nation’s first Indo-Fijian prime minister, who was overthrown in a 2000 coup.
“I see no proof of unrest right here, persons are calm and they’re ready for the president to convene parliament so {that a} prime minister is elected,” he mentioned.
The Pacific nation has skilled 4 navy coups previously 35 years.
Bainimarama has been in energy for 16 years after orchestrating a navy coup and later refashioning himself as a democratic chief, introducing a brand new structure and profitable elections in 2014 and 2018.
The opposition chief, Rabuka, led Fiji’s first navy takeover in 1987 and later served seven years as an elected prime minister within the Nineties, earlier than being eliminated on the polls in 1999.
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Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, the Fiji First social gathering’s general-secretary and the legal professional basic underneath Bainimarama’s administration, mentioned on Wednesday that Bainimarama would stay prime minister till politicians returned to parliament inside two weeks to vote on the subsequent chief.
Sayed-Khaiyum questioned the validity of the inner voting, which had led to one of many events becoming a member of Rabuka’s coalition. He additionally accused Rabuka of sowing division in Fiji.
“Your complete rationale of this man has been to divide Fiji to achieve political supremacy,” Sayed-Khaiyum mentioned. “And we will see that simmering by once more. Actually, it’s not simmering; it’s boiling.”
A day earlier, Rabuka and two different social gathering leaders introduced they had been forming a coalition with a complete of 29 seats in opposition to Fiji First’s 26 and would type the subsequent authorities.
Bainimarama and Rabuka had been initially deadlocked after the election. Rabuka’s Individuals’s Alliance Get together gained 21 seats, the affiliated Nationwide Federation Get together gained 5 seats and Bainimarama’s Fiji First social gathering secured 26 seats.
That left the Social Democratic Liberal Get together, which gained three seats, holding the steadiness of energy. The social gathering selected Tuesday in a detailed 16-14 inner vote to go along with Rabuka – a vote that Fiji First is now questioning.