2 May 2009

Fiji's emergency regulations to stay - Bainimarama

12:01 pm on 2 May 2009

Fiji's interim prime minister, Commodore Frank Bainimarama, says public emergency regulations on the island will be extended.

Commodore Bainimarama made the announcement in an Australian newspaper on Friday.

The regulations came into effect three weeks ago and were due to expire on 10 May.

No political meetings are allowed under the emergency regulations. The Fiji media has also been heavily censored since the regulations came into effect.

Meanwhile, Fiji's government appears to have ignored the threat of suspension from the Pacific Islands Forum, which has set a deadline of Friday for Fiji to set a credible date for democratic elections or face suspension.

Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully says it now seems inevitable that Fiji will be suspended from the forum.

"The deadline has been set and it doesn't look like we're going to see anything that's going to stave it off," Mr McCully says.

Fiji's president, Ratu Josefa Iloilo, has made it clear that elections will not be held until 2014, which forum leaders consider unacceptable.

The forum has also indicated that recent events, including the abrogation of the constitution and a clampdown on the media, have strengthened its resolve to suspend Fiji.

However Fiji's attorney-general, Aiyaz Sayed Khaiyum, has said he does not expect the suspension to proceed.

Mr McCully says the forum will also consider whether to move its Suva-based secretariat, as it monitors the situation over the coming weeks.

Historian Brij Lal from the Australian National University in Canberra, the architect of Fiji's revoked constitution, says if the country is suspended it will not only lose bilateral aid, trade and sporting links, but will also become a pariah state.

Some forum leaders have raised concerns about the suspension, saying channels of communication with Fiji's government need to be kept open.

Commodore Bainimarama has reportedly asked for an urgent meeting with New Zealand and Australia about the expulsion threat.

But Mr McCully says offers to talk to New Zealand and Australian leaders are unlikely to be taken up.