New Zealand rules out summit vote on Fiji despite support

Sep 7, 2011, 5:53 GMT

Wellington - New Zealand blocked a call for a vote on Fiji's membership of the 16-strong Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) on Wednesday, after the leader of tiny Kiribati broke ranks to propose the reinstatement of the military-run state.

Fiji, one of the seven founding members of the forum in 1971, was suspended after military strongman Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama ousted the democratically elected government in December 2006. He has rejected calls to hold fresh elections before 2014.

As the 40th annual PIF summit began in Auckland, Kiribati's President Anote Tong told a news conference he would vote for Fiji's suspension to be lifted and thought other members would support the move though they were not prepared to say so publicly.

He said it was important to keep engaging with Fiji, which he likened to a misbehaving child. 'Do you kick him out?' he asked. 'No, you never do because we are a family and we must act like a family.'

Tong's comments came after nine PIF members went to a rival meeting organized in Fiji last week by Bainimarama, who has appointed himself prime minister.

That meeting passed a resolution endorsing Bainimarama's moves to reform Fiji's electoral system.

Melanesian PIF members Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu and Kiribati have been more sympathetic to Fiji than others since the coup.

New Zealand Prime Minister John Key, who is hosting the summit, said after talking to other leaders there was a consensus in favour of Fiji's continued suspension.

He said he did not want to prevent any discussion on the matter, but that Fiji's exclusion was not on the summit's formal agenda.

He agreed that the Pacific nations were a family, and said that was why leaders were distressed, but they also agreed that democracy needed to be restored to the country.

The Fiji military government has ruled with emergency powers since April 2009, when the constitution was abolished and the judiciary sacked. Media is censored and political meetings banned.

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