RNZ Pacific
Suva, Fiji, March 12, 2024
The removal of Fiji’s Minister for Women, Children and Poverty Alleviation Lynda Tabuya will send a wrong signal to women, a popular social leader has said.
Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre Coordinator Shamima Ali called on Prime Minister and Leader of the People’s Alliance Party (PAP) Sitiveni Rabuka and asked him to reinstate Tabuya as the Minister and Deputy Leader of the Party.
“A giant step would be for the Prime Minister to behave decently and do the right thing…so that women know we will be protected,” she said.
The alleged scandal
Ms Tabuya, who is also the Deputy Leader of the ruling People’s Alliance Party (PAP) has been embroiled in an alleged sex and drug scandal with axed Education Minister Aseri Radrodro. She lost her Party position last week following an inquiry by PAP.
According to the Party’s main decision-making body, the allegations have caused “irreparable damage” to PAP’s image and reputation and the Party resolved to remove Ms Tabuya “in the best interest of the Party.”
She told RNZ Pacific that the decision was “unfair” and “generated by opponents from outside the Party.”
She said that the decision of the Party “is not a finding of guilt” and that “the two lawyers in the Legal and Disciplinary Sub-Committee who have based their recommendations on allegations published on social media aimed to weaken the Coalition and the Party.”
Radrodro of SODELPA, one of the two minor parties in the three-party coalition government, has not faced a similar inquiry into his conduct as a result of the allegations.
Ms Ali told journalists at a news conference in Suva that women’s leadership is often judged by their personal and sexual behaviour.
A key player in politics
While defending the Minister on the eve of International Women’s Day last Thursday, she said that Ms Tabuya received almost 12,000 votes in the 2022 election, second only to Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka.
“She should be one of the Deputy Prime Ministers, but she did not take that up. None of the Deputy Prime Ministers comes anywhere near the number of votes she got,” she said.
Ms Tabuya played a key part in Rabuka’s election campaign and success at the 2022 polls to oust the Bainimarama administration’s hold on power – being the fourth-highest polling candidate and the only woman in the top 10.
Ms Ali said that since the 2014 elections, Ms Tabuya has systematically gotten more and more votes and she is being treated unfairly “because she does not conform.”
“Women leaders have to play dumb in front of men or they walk around and keep smiling and act like a school girl and do not show that you are too smart. This is how society a patriarchal society works,” he said.
Ms Ali said that she has been working as a Women’s Rights advocate for over three decades and the Parliament is “full of MPs who have affairs and are wife beaters.”
“It is full of them…wife beaters, girlfriend beaters, I have seen them all in there, but no one judges them by all those things. It is the women who are judged.
Media blamed
She blamed the media for being “very bad” at reporting about the sex and drug allegations.
“It is all allegations. I thought the media was there to tell the truth,” she said.
Rabuka told the local media that he had no input in Ms Tabuya being stripped of her role as PAP Deputy Leader and that the decision was made by the Party.
“I am still considering,” he said when asked by the state broadcaster about what his decision is on the issue.
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