Tevita Momoedonu
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Ratu Tatu Tevita Momoedonu has served as Prime Minister of Fiji twice - each time extremely briefly. Both appointments were to get around constitutional technicalities; his first term of office - on 27 May 2000 lasted only a few minutes. His second term - from 14 to 16 March 2001 was for two days.
A Cabinet Minister in the government of Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry, Momoedonu was the only minister not present in the Parliament building when George Speight stormed the complex on May 19 2000, taking Chaudhry and other government members hostage and staging a coup d'état. The President, Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, wanted to assume emergency powers to deal with the situation, but was unable to do so, because constitutionally, the President is not allowed to act except on the advice of the Prime Minister - and Prime Minister Chaudhry, being in captivity, was unable to render such advice. In a move which some legal scholars have questioned as being of doubtful constitutional validity, Mara therefore dismissed Chaudhry and appointed Momoedonu in his place on May 27, so that Momoedonu could "advise" him to suspend Parliament and assume emergency powers. Upon tendering the requisite advice, Momoedonu promptly resigned. The whole procedure had taken only a few minutes. (The move backfired when, two days later, Mara was himself deposed by the Commander of the Fiji Military Forces, Commodore Frank Bainimarama).
Momoedonu's second appointment, on 14 March 2001, came in the wake of an Appeals Court verdict that the interim government of President Josefa Iloilo and Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase, both of whom had taken office when the coup had been put down, was unconstitutional, and ordered that the previous government be reinstated. That would mean reinstating Ratu Mara as President or else convening the Great Council of Chiefs to elect a new President. Mara moved to spare the country further constitutional trauma by resigning officially, retroactive to May 29 2000 (the day on which he had been deposed), thereby validating the Iloilo regime, which was duly affirmed by the Great Council of Chiefs. The court verdict was also widely interpreted to mean that Mahendra Chaudhry should be reinstated as Prime Minister, but President Iloilo disagreed. He argued that defections from Chaudhry's Labour Party meant that he no longer had majority support in the House of Representatives, and therefore the President was not obliged to appoint him. Iloilo had apparently decided already that the best way forward for Fiji was to take the question of the country's leadership back to the people, but he could not constitutionally call an early election except on the advice of the Prime Minister - advice that he was sure Chaudhry would refuse to render. He therefore appointed Momoedonu. There was a legal argument, albeit a flimsy one, that as the last "lawfully appointed" Prime Minister under the last constitutional President, Ratu Mara, Momoedonu should be reappointed. Cynics, including former House Speaker Tomasi Vakatora, saw the appointment more as a case of nepotism: (http://members.fortunecity.com/omegatimes/moral_17.htm) Momoedonu was President Iloilo's nephew. The appointment, although brief, entitled him to a lifetime pension amounting to 20 percent of the Prime Minister's salary.
Momoedonu rendered his formal advice to President Iloilo to dissolve Parliament and call a general election. Mission accomplished, Momoedonu resigned the next day, allowing Laisenia Qarase to resume the office of Prime Minister. In the ensuing election, Qarase was confirmed as Prime Minister when his newly-formed United Fiji Party won a plurality. Momoedonu, however, stood as a candidate for the House of Representatives on the Bei Kei Viti Party ticket, but was defeated.
As of April 2005, Momoedonu is Fiji's Ambassador to Japan.
External link
- Radio Tevita (his former talk show) (http://www.usp.ac.fj/journ/docs/wansol/6301/630114tevita.html)
- Moral Archives (several unsympathetic articles) (http://members.fortunecity.com/omegatimes/moral_17.htm)
| Preceded by: Mahendra Chaudhry Laisenia Qarase | Prime Minister of Fiji 2000 2001 | Succeeded by: office declared vacant Laisenia Qarase |