The Australian foreign policy establishment has been plunged into an agonising debate with the gradual realisation that Canberra’s hardline approach to Fiji has failed.
“The bipartisan consensus between Labor and the Coalition that the diplomatic cold shoulder and targeted sanctions would eventually bring the Bainimarama regime to heel has been shattered.” says Graham Davis. “Australia grossly underestimated Frank Bainimarama on two crucial fronts. One was his resolve to enforce his own version of tough love – to end the entrenched racism that has bedeviled Fijian democracy with an enforced period of dictatorship leading to fresh elections on the basis of one man, one vote for the first time.
Graham Davis is an independent Fiji-born journalist and publisher of the political blog Grubsheet
- Grubsheet
- Image: Sunday Observer
