Coalition Governance requires compromise, some party extremists may disagree – PM

Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka says in the interest of coalition governance, they must try and bring the individual party manifestos together into a mix of policies that will benefit the people of Fiji and when they do that, some of the extremist members of the parties may not agree and like the compromise they have made to satisfy the demands of the nation.

He says they will always have that as every party has extreme left and extreme right elements.

He has highlighted this while responding to questions on fijivillage Straight Talk with Vijay Narayan on the challenges of the Coalition Government.

When questioned about having difficulties with SODELPA in the first two years, Rabuka says SODELPA must understand that the Coalition Agreement was their agreement, which they demanded the other two parties to agree with.

While responding to questions on whether SODELPA will still remain in the Coalition as the People's Alliance and NFP now have the numbers in Parliament after the inclusion of some members of the Group of 9 into the Cabinet, Rabuka says he expects SODELPA to remain as they have the three portfolios they asked for.

He says they have had a change of their party leader and he has asked them this week who they want to be the Deputy Prime Minister.

Rabuka says if so, he will move the party leader Aseri Radrodro up to be Deputy Prime Minister and ask Deputy Prime Minister Viliame Gavoka to step down from the position.

While responding to questions about concerns raised by Radrodro that they were not consulted with relation to the inclusion of some Group of 9 members into Cabinet, Rabuka says this is correct and he did not consult anybody.