Commonwealth pressures Fiji on elections promise

14/05/2008 08:36:00

The Commonwealth has urged the Pacific Islands Forum and the international community to keep pressure on Fiji to honour its promise to hold free and fair elections within a year.

As Radio Australia's Tom Fayle reports, the statement follows a meeting of the nine-nation Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group in London, where it was decided to extend Fiji's suspension from the Group's councils.

Fiji was suspended from the Commonwealth after the military of coup of late 2006, and Commonwealth Secretary-General Kamalesh Sharma says the suspension will remain in place for the foreseeable future.

"The Group continued to be concerned at reports which indicated that the independence of the judiciary and freedom of the media were being seriously compromised, including the deportation of media personnel in contravention of court orders and evidence of the continued militarisation of key Fijian institutions," he said.

In October last year, Fiji's military government gave a commitment to the Pacific Islands Forum to hold democratic elections by a deadline of March 2009.

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