SUVA, Fiji (AP) — Police said Tuesday they were investigating allegations that Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase’s government illegally distributed millions of dollars of equipment to villagers to encourage them to vote for his party in last year’s election.
If proven guilty, a court could throw Qarase’s Fijian United Party out of government, election supervisor Walter Rigamoto said.
That would almost certainly force fresh elections just as the Pacific nation is beginning to recover from the political and economic turmoil that followed a May 2000 nationalist coup.
Police spokesman Unaisi Vuniwaqa said the Criminal Investigations Department had begun inquiries into claims Qarase’s government illegally ordered the distribution of agricultural tools, boats, outboard engines and planting material to Fijian villagers ahead of last August’s election.
Qarase has vehemently denied the claims, made by suspended Permanent Secretary for Agriculture Peniasi Kunatuba.
Kunatuba is one of five senior agricultural department officials under investigation by a government civil service watchdog for allegedly allowing the distribution of vast amounts of materials to impoverished villagers prior to the election.
He made his pork barrel allegations saying he was being made a scapegoat by the government.
Qarase said he was investigating taking court action to refute the claims.
“We have already started looking at what we can do in court and we have a few options,” Qarase told the partly government-owned Fiji Post newspaper without elaborating.
Fiji Labor Party leader Mahendra Chaudhry has claimed his party would have won the election but for the impact of the distribution of materials to Fijian villagers under a scheme intended to boost village-level agricultural and fishing output.
Chaudhry was prime minister until he was ousted in a May 2000 coup by nationalist Fijians. Qarase was appointed caretaker prime minister after the coup and went on to win last year’s election.
