Fiji dictator angry at losing popularity poll

JOHN SELKIRK/Fairfax NZ

IN CHARGE: Fiji's military dictator Voreqe Bainimarama.

Relevant offers

Fiji's military dictator Voreqe Bainimarama has ordered two regime inquiries after he failed to win a television text message competition for personality of the year.

The regime's attorney general Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum told a press conference in Suva that the poll result has been changed and Bainimarama is first - beating out a woman who won it on January 1, Premila Kumar of the Fiji Consumer Council.

Bainimarama, who ended democracy with an armed coup in 2006 and refuses to restore democracy until 2014 at the earliest, claims the text polling run by semi-privately owned Fiji TV and Vodafone, was undemocratic.

"The allegation is that members of the public could text in and give their vote and the announcement was going to be made on the first of January," Sayed-Khaiyum says.

But they closed the poll on December 30 and ignored 1500 votes sent in on December 31 - and almost all of the votes on the last day were for Bainimarama. The uncounted votes appear to make up almost all of the submitted text votes.

Sayed-Khaiyum says Fiji TV has apologised and on January 9 reversed the result awarding the title to Bainimarama.

But the regime has sent a formal complaint to the Commerce Commission and to the Media Development Authority "in respect of unethical practices".

The authority was established by military decree and has dacronian powers to close down media outlets or force them to change owners - as they did to the Rupert Murdoch owned Fiji Times.

Under the revised Personality of the Year results, Bainimarama apparently scored 1700 votes to Kumar's 464.

- © Fairfax NZ News