WELLINGTON (Pacnews) — Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer says he hopes Pacific osland governments will exert collective pressure for a return to democracy in Fiji.
Downer, who is in here Wellington for talks with New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters, said there will be a meeting of Pacific Forum ministers on March 16. A report on Fiji prepared by an Eminent Persons Group will be considered at that meeting.
“We will work out what our response is and then, on the basis of that, hopefully put a collective view.”
He said the EPG has produced a road map for a return to democracy that is a more rapid process than that proposed by Fiji’s military commander Frank Bainimarama, who seized power in a coup in December and has since appointed himself prime minister.
Commodore Bainimarama said Fiji could be returned to democracy in 2010, after a constitutional review and an examination of electoral boundaries.