1. What were the reasons for the two Fiji's coups in 1987? What role political parties played during the Coup?
On 7 April 1987, the citizens of Fiji went to the election poll for the fifth time since accomplishing freedom from Great Britain in 1970. Fiji Labor Party-National Federation Party Coalition prevailed upon a persuading and memorable triumph the long-authoritative Alliance party, catching twenty-eight of the fifty-two seats in the Fiji Parliament. The new Cabinet, youthful, incredibly knowledgeable and ostensibly left-inclining, guaranteed another heading intended to make a non-ethnic state and a distributive society for Fiji, a move that looked to end the heritage of mutually troublesome governmental issues passed on by seventeen years of Alliance rule. The administration was a month old. In addition, obliging and as anyone might expect, a few individuals from the previous Mara organization and the Alliance party, their vested political and individual interests compromised and their professions in ruins, sorted out themselves into an aggressor indigenous power named the "Taukei Movement" and propelled a painstakingly arranged campaign to wreck the recently chose government. Inside seven days of the political race, Fiji was shaken by a fierce and unnerving effort of torching, damage, detours, and dissent walks, peaking with the military-drove topple of the Bavadra government on May 14. The upset heads endeavored to reinstall the vanquished Mara government once again into power, yet were defeated in their endeavors by decided however quiet inside opposition and extensive outer weight. Unfit to accomplish their quick objective and secluded, repelled, and alienated by the worldwide network, they at that point hit with a second upset on September 25 finished the government, and was in no time followed by the decree of a republic on 7 October. Both military coups were driven by Lieutenant Colonel Sitiveni Rabuka.
2. Explain the Role of Great Council of Chiefs during the Coups?
Soon after Rabuka’s coups, the GCC, with the encouragement of the military, reverted to being almost exclusively a council of hereditary chiefs. The then Minister of Fijian affairs, an army colonel, explained that ‘while we appreciate the contributions made by commoners…it is becoming increasingly evident that the chiefs can be outvoted …What we want is for the commoners to act as advisers while the decision-making is left entirely to the chiefs’. Rabuka himself lamented that ‘there are so many non-chiefs there who will try to dictate the resolutions …The chiefs are so humble, their personalities and their character do not make them forceful enough when they discuss matters. They will agree, they will compromise…whereas those who are not chiefs in [the GCC] tend to be very very selfish…’