Alex Perrottet
SUVA (Pacific Scoop / Pacific Media Watch): New Zealand Foreign Minister Murray McCully and his Australian counterpart Bob Carr have received strong assurances that Fiji is well on its way to democracy and have acknowledged that Fiji “is in a state of transition”.
McCully, who is chair of the Forum Ministerial Contact Group visiting Fiji, today said the outlook was “very positive” but there was still concern over basic freedoms being observed.
“We were encouraged by the reports we received today about the firm intention to hold elections in 2014 and the reports about the machinery put in place to make those elections possible,” he said.
“We found it reassuring to receive those very strong statements from a number of levels of the administration here.”
The visiting group released a statement which welcomed assurances that the constitutional consultation will be opened to all, that the elections would be free and fair, and that that there would be no media restrictions leading to the promised elections in 2014.
McCully said he was told the country was moving through transitions that would see those freedoms “increasingly observed”.
He said even the views of critics of the current military-led government gave them encouragement to “take heart” in Fiji, and to “take account of the bold statements made today about where things will be in a few months time”.
“We need to move forward here.”
Read the full article here: http://pacific.scoop.co.nz/2012/05/mccully-and-carr-take-heart-from-bold-fiji-statements/
Alex Perrottet, contributing editor of the Pacific Media Centre's Pacific Media Watch freedom project, is in Fiji for the UNESCO press freedom events at the University of the South Pacific.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 New Zealand Licence.
Alex Perrottet
