Fiji's NFP party to consider withdrawing from parliament

Transcript

The leader of Fiji's opposition National Federation Party says its members will this month consider whether to leave parliament.

Biman Prasad says the opposition is frustrated by the lack of momentum in the parliament, which was restarted after elections in 2014.

He says his party is constantly hamstrung in its ability to carry out its functions by restrictions and a lack of resources for the opposition, and what he considers a bias towards the governing Fiji First party.

Dr Prasad told Jamie Tahana the party's committee will meet on January the 31st when members will decide the future.

TRANSCRIPT:

BIMAN PRASAD: This is a discussion that will go to the party's powerful working committee and in that meeting the parliamentary board, which consists of the three members of the National Federation Party in parliament, will have to report on the workings of the parliament and what we have achieved and not achieved in the last 12 or 13 months and also discuss the obstacles to the opposition party in performing its role. We are disappointed in the way the parliament processes, and our own ability to do the work decently and effectively has been curtailed partly from the lack of resources to opposition parliamentary parties, the restrictions on political parties to have political meetings where we are required to have permits, we are concerned about the functioning of the parliament -- for example, in 2016 the parliament is going to sit for only 20 days, four weeks in a year. These are big issues that we believe ought to be addressed if Fiji is to achieve genuine democracy in the future.

JAMIE TAHANA: It goes to your party committee, but to even consider pulling out of parliament is a big no confidence vote in the system already, isn't it?

BP: You're absolutely right, I think anything that gives credibility to this government and to any thinking that we have democracy is the participation of the two opposition parties in parliament. You know, you cannot have a democracy where the parliament is not functioning with a proper opposition. Despite our reservations about the constitution, the political parties participated in the election and the hope was that once we had a parliament that whoever was in government would be able to engage with the parties in opposition because to resolve some of these big issues such as the review of the constitution, to remove many of the draconian decrees, you need to bipartisan agreement, and that is what we've been trying to do over the last 12 or 13 months and I'm afraid we have not been successful. So really, what we are saying is it's time for us to take stock, to review the way in which we want to continue participating in this so-called democracy.

JT: If that idea does go through though, and your main concern is a lack of parliamentary opposition, surely one opposition party withdrawing from parliament is an idea that would erode opposition further?

BP: Well those are issues that I'm sure the working committee will consider seriously. As you know, there are always pros and cons to a particular action that the working committee will consider is going to be taking into account the pros and cons, and obviously we work very well with the other opposition parties and so any decision that the working committee takes will of course be discussed and the other opposition parties would be consulted.