Bainimarama

SUVA, Fiji (AP):

Fiji's first ethnic Indian Prime Minister, who was ousted in a nationalist coup in 2000, was appointed yesterday to top-level Cabinet posts in the government being set up after the South Pacific country's latest military takeover.

Chaudhry was the opposition Labor Party leader before Bainima-rama seized power on December 5, 2006, ousting nationalist Prime Minister, Laisenia Qarase, after a long feud.

Among key disputes between Bainimarama and Qarase was the government's plans to offer pardons to plotters in the 2000 coup that saw armed gunmen storm Parliament and take then-Prime Minister Chaudhry and other legislators hostage for 56 days before Bainimarama negotiated a settlement.

Mahendra Chaudhry said his appointment in key finance and industry roles by armed forces commander Commodore Frank Bainimarama was a "strange twist of destiny, but said he had accepted the job to try to restore the country's economy as quickly as possible.

"The constitutionality or otherwise of the government that I pledged to serve is yet to be determined," Chaudhry told reporters after being sworn in as minister for finance, national planning, the key sugar industry and public enterprises.

"What is more important at this stage, in view of the serious decline of the economy and the problems associated with such an economy, is to get back to rebuilding the nation as quickly as possible," he said.