Litia Cava 
[Photo: Supplied]
Former Prime Minister and Fiji Labour Party Leader Mahendra Chaudhry has accused the Coalition Government of seeking to transfer political power from ordinary Fijians to an elite group through the proposed return of a Senate.
He questions why an unelected institution should have such a dominant role in the country’s legislature.
Chaudhry directed the criticism at Deputy Prime Minister Manoa Kamikamica during the Fijian Media Association’s town hall meeting.
He argued that the proposed composition of the upper house would give the Great Council of Chiefs considerable influence over the legislative process.
Under the proposed arrangement, the Great Council of Chiefs would nominate 14 of the 23 senators, giving it a majority of seats in the upper chamber. Chaudhry questioned the democratic basis for concentrating that level of representation in an institution whose members are not directly elected by the people.
He went further, questioning whether Fiji, with a population of less than one million, needed a second chamber of Parliament at all.
He argued that the Senate would not add value to the legislative process and maintained that, if an upper house was to be established, its members should be elected.
Chaudhry’s central concern was not simply the restoration of a Senate but who would control it and where its authority would come from.
He argued that the proposed arrangement would shift decision-making power away from ordinary citizens and into the hands of a privileged few.
Kamikamica rejected the allegation, defending the proposed Senate by pointing out that Fiji had an upper house under the 1997 Constitution.
