Mahendra Chaudhry

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Mahendra Chaudhry (2015)

Mahendra Pal Chaudhry (born September 2, 1942 in Tavua , Ba Province , Western Division ) is a Fijian politician of the Fiji Labor Party .

Life

Chaudhry was one of the founding members of the Fiji Labor Party in 1985 and was then deputy general secretary of the party from 1985 to 1994. In 1987 he was elected to the House of Representatives for the first time and shortly afterwards, in April 1987, he was appointed Minister of Economics and Finance in the government of Prime Minister Timoci Bavadra . However, he lost these offices a month later after Bavadra was overthrown on May 14, 1987 by a coup led by Lieutenant Colonel Sitiveni Rabuka .

After Bavadra's death on November 3, 1989, he succeeded him as chairman of the Fiji Labor Party and was re-elected to the House of Representatives in 1992. He has represented the constituency of Ba Open there since 1999 .

On May 19, 1999, he succeeded Rabuka as Prime Minister, making him the first Prime Minister of Fiji with Indian ethnicity , which was only made possible by the 1997 new constitution . However, previous coalition negotiations with the Fiji People's Party (FPP) led by Ratu Inoke Kubuabola had failed. Its main domestic political goal was to end the tension between the different ethnic groups.

Exactly one year after taking office, he and his cabinet were taken hostage on May 19, 2000 by putschists led by businessman George Speight and with the support of conservative forces. Frank Bainimarama , the head of the armed forces , declared President Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara deposed after the coup and himself the new ruler of the island state. The intervention of the military ended the coup, but at the same time meant the temporary end of the brief phase of political development and equality of the Indo-Fijians. On July 4, 2000, Senator Laisenia Qarase took over the post of prime minister on an interim basis and held this position until March 14, 2001, although Chaudhry had previously been released on June 13, 2000.

Most recently, Chaudhry was Finance Minister again from 2007 to August 2008 in Frank Bainimarama's interim government. He was then briefly arrested in the House of Representatives and in October 2010 for violating military emergency laws and illegal meetings with critical sugar planters. He had already expressed his disappointment with the existing emergency laws and the resulting political situation on several occasions.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. AFP: Fiji's military leader takes over country's finances (August 18, 2008) ( Memento of May 20, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
  2. BBC: Fiji's ex-PM Mahendra Chaudhry released on bail (October 4, 2010)
  3. ABC RADIO AUSTRALIA: Former PM Chaudhry frustrated with Fiji emergency rule (June 8, 2009)