The 2006 Military Takeover in Fiji, A Coup to End All Coups?, A Coup to End All Coups?

Year

2009

Publisher

ANU Press

Language

English

Pages

ISBN

978-1-92153-650-2

Link

Last Update

11-Dec-2025

Keywords

Political Science

Description

Fiji’s December 2006 coup defied the assumptions upon which that country’s post-independence history had hitherto been written. Until then, it had been assumed that the indigenous Fijians would control the country’s politics. Even in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, when numbers of indigenous Fijians and Fiji Indians were close to parity, election victories by parties with predominantly Fiji Indian support had each entailed constitutional crises (April 1977) or coups (1987, 1999-2000). Writing of the 1987 election with the benefit of hindsight, one scholar described the objectives of the leftist and multiracially oriented but largely Indian-backed Fiji Labour Party – which briefly...