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The man who seized power for the first time in a military coup then reconfigured himself into a legitimate leader and seems determined to lead Fiji for four years.
Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama and his party FijiFirst head for a convincing electoral victory early Thursday as the votes were compiled. Bainimarama has been leading the island nation since his 2006 coup and won his first elections in 2014 after restoring democracy in the country.
With about half of the votes counted, FijiFirst was in the lead with 53% of the vote, while his closest rival was the Social Democratic Liberal Party, led by Sitiveni Rabuka, with 37%. The margin was narrower than in the last election, when FijiFirst won nearly 60% of the vote.
Rabuka led two military coups in the 1980s before serving seven years as prime minister in the 1990s. This week again, a judge laundered a disclosure violation. in a business that many saw as politically motivated.
Heavy rains on Wednesday affected voter turnout. The weather has prompted the authorities to close more than 20 polling stations, affecting more than 7,000 voters who were promised to vote at a later date.
Before the end of the vote, the election supervisor, Mohammed Saneem, urged voters to defy the weather, saying the minimum turnout should "increase as much as possible".
"The weather is a bit discouraging," said Akanisi Lal. This did not stop the 53-year-old woman from taking a break from taking care of her family and voting for Bainimarama.
"I've seen what he's been doing over the past four years," she said, citing policies such as free bus fares for seniors. "He will go further if he comes back to power."
Some voters were reluctant to say who they voted for fear of reprisals. "I do not want to be a victim," said Jashneel Kumar, a 24-year-old nurse.
Fiji has not let political tensions weigh on their vital tourism industry, which promotes the pristine and sunny beaches of the Pacific nation, as well as its friendly and welcoming inhabitants.
Given the history of the coups, political stability and racial tension and economic problems were an important factor before the elections.
Out of a total of 920,000 people, many seem to appreciate the economic gains they made under Bainimarama.
"There is no tuition, before I paid a few hundred dollars for school fees," said Mere Rigamoto, a mother of three who is 42 years old. "The Bainimarama government is not bad, it's fine."
But Bainimarama has a troubled political history that has contributed to the culture of the coup. There were rumors that he could organize another coup if he lost the election.
"We can only do another shot if it does not win," said Robert Lum On, 30, a recent graduate of the university.
Fiji became independent from the United Kingdom in 1970. In 1987, Rabuka organized two racist coups to return the country to indigenous Fijians, who make up about 57 percent of the population, and away from Fijians of Indian origin, constituting 38 percent.
Indo-Fijians have been an important ethnic group in Fiji since the colonial era, when the British brought them to work in the sugar cane plantations. Many Indo-Fijians are in favor of Bainimarama, whose new constitution of 2013 has removed race quotas from Parliament.
"The key success of Bainimarama has been to establish the name" Fijian "for all Fijian citizens," said Richard Herr, a professor at the National University of Fiji, based in Australia. "Its legislation has made illegal the campaign on race or even the creation of a racially based party".
In the election campaign, Bainimarama accused Rabuka of fanning the flames of racism that continues to divide the country. But some indigenous Fijians thought that Rabuka would help them restore their prestige and appreciated his promise to bring back the Grand Council of Chiefs of the country, which Bainimarama dissolved.
Critics scoff at Bainimarama as being authoritarian, but since he has imposed himself on power, he has changed his image to that of a stable and legitimate leader. His call was reinforced when he assumed the presidency of COP23 in November 2017. In this role that he held until December, he made Fiji a pioneer of climate change issues .
With COP23 as a platform, Fiji has included small island developing States in the international debate on climate change. The islands are at the forefront of global warming, rising sea levels and ocean acidification.
After the 2006 coup, Australia and New Zealand imposed sanctions on Fiji and Bainimarama reoriented its regional alliances with China. His critics accuse him of selling the country to the Chinese.
The Lowy Institute said Fiji had received about $ 360 million worth of aid from China between 2006 and 2016, placing it behind only Papua New Guinea in the Pacific region. Chinese bank Exim Bank holds 39% of Fiji's external public debt, according to The Economist Intelligence Unit.
Fiji's relations have since normalized with Australia and New Zealand, but the period of sanctions has allowed China to strengthen its regional influence.
Fiji has one of the healthiest economies in the Pacific Islands and GDP is expected to exceed 3% per year by 2020. Tourism is the foundation of the economy, accounting for more than 40 % of GDP.
The Bainimarama government is recognized for the increase in social services, including free education at the primary and secondary levels, free bus fares for the elderly and aid in the aftermath of cyclones. But widespread poverty persists. Opponents of Bainimarama have promised to raise the minimum wage, which remains only $ 1.25 per hour.
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Nick Perry, an Associated Press reporter in Wellington, New Zealand, contributed to this report.
