Bizarre start to Fijian democracy

SUVA, Fiji -- One prominent candidate cast an early vote and another went on trial for treason as the citizens of Fiji embarked on an unusual path back to democracy.

Former Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry, who was held hostage by gunmen in a coup, joined about 200 other citizens who cast early votes Friday at a polling booth in the capital, Suva.

Elsewhere in Suva, the man who led the coup, businessman George Speight, went on trial with 12 others, only to see their treason case adjourned until 2002.

The adjournment means Speight can contest in the polls.

General voting starts Saturday and lasts a week to give people on Fiji's approximately 300 scattered islands time to vote.

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As the treason trial was being adjourned, candidate Chaudhry voted early because he will be traveling throughout the country during the weeklong poll and will not visit his constituency in western Viti Levu, Fiji's main island.

Prime minister for a year before being ousted by Speight's nationalist coup, Chaudhry has emerged as a front-runner in the election.

Fresh unrest

Backed by unions and Indian sugar cane growers, some analysts expect Chaudhry to be a part of any government formed after results are declared early next month.

But nationalist groups strongly oppose him and his return to power could lead to new political unrest.

The coup toppled Chaudhry, the country's first ethnic Indian prime minister, with the gunmen saying they wanted to return power to the indigenous Fijian majority. The trial delay was caused by questions over whether the judge set to hear the case is too old.

Judge Peter Surman is 65, the age at which judges must retire under the Fiji Constitution.

Indigenous stronghold

The adjournment means Speight will contest racially divided Fiji's election from a prison cell as a candidate for the indigenous Fijians' Conservative Alliance.

It also means that if he wins his seat in the indigenous stronghold of Korovou on the northeast of the main island of Viti Levu, he will be eligible to sit for two scheduled sessions of parliament later this year before his trial resumes.

Treason carries the death penalty in Fiji, but capital sentences are generally commuted to life in prison.

Prosecutor Peter Ridgeway said Fiji's Supreme Court would determine whether Surman should hear the case against Speight and his co-conspirators.

Speight does not deny the charges, but insists he was granted immunity.