A knife-edge election in Fiji sees power shift – and a chance to bring back real democracy
- Written by Steven Ratuva, Director, Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies, University of Canterbury
When the final election results were announced around 4pm on Sunday, many Fijians, at home and around the world, breathed a collective sigh of relief: the government of coup-maker Frank Bainimarama looked like it had finally been defeated at the ballot box.
Could it be that the militarised political culture, pervasive in Fiji since the 1987 coups,...













