When you (President Ratu Sir Penaia Ganilau) called me at Lomaloma in December 1987 and asked me to form an Interim Government to prepare the country for a return to parliamentary rule, I knew the task at hand would be onerous. Fiji had experienced the ordeal of two military coups. Society was fractured, the economy was tottering and the country had been ostracised by some of its oldest friends and allies. There was no Parliament and no properly functioning political system. Even institutions of State, such as the judiciary, were seriously weakened, to the extent that the citizenry justifiably feared a breakdown in law and order. The business community was hit by a slump in sales and confidence, leading to reduced earnings and loss of jobs.

Here was an action that touched on raw and sensitive nerves in a community that had already undergone the trauma of two military takeovers. There was an undoub…

(On his Catholic faith): 'Certainly it has been the rock on which I have always been able to rely in good times and in bad, and it is the lodestone of my life.'

It is with obedience to your call that I take up the burden of government leadership for the final time.

I think we have to ask this administration, and the President specifically, about using their political capital now to stand up for the American consumer who i…

Under a cabinet constitution at a sudden emergency this people can choose a ruler for the occasion. It is quite possible and even likely that he would not be r…

It's not that Governments are constitutionally incapable of making the right decision, it's that they only do so as a matter of last resort.