(5 Sep 2001)
Suva, Fiji: September 5, 2001
1. Police arranging barb wire
2. Police setting out barricades
3. Prison bus drives by
4. Zoom in on prison bus
5. George Speight disembarks bus
6. Security outside court
7. Bus leaves court and Speight waves from window
8. Various voting in Speight's electorate
9. Zoom out from Speight election poster to supporter
10. Speight's brother monitors mobile phone
11. Close up polling figures on paper
12. SOUNDBITE (English) Electoral officer
"Having completed the counting of votes in respect for the Tailevu provincial communal constituency, I hearby declare Ilikini Naitini (George Speight) to be the elected member of the house of representatives for the Tailevu North provincial communal constituency. Thankyou"
13. Various Speight's supporters cheering
14. Seight's brother embraces a supporter
15. SOUNDBITE (English) TV interviewer
Q. So what now for George Speight
SOUNDBITE (English) Samisoni Tikoinasau, Speight's elder brother
"Well for George only time will tell. I think we take things one at a time and today was a big statement that the Fijian people wanted to make with regard to the people who fought the cause last year and I think the world can sit up now and take notice that of course there was support for what was fought for last year."
16. Headquarters of Fiji Labour party
17. Closeup of Labour party flag
17. SOUNDBITE (English) Samisoni Tikoinasau, Speight's elder brother
"The foundations and the course that was fought for last year is very clear and if Mr Chaudhry acknowledges where we're coming from the door is open for him. But first and foremost the Fijians have got to set themselves here in all areas.
18. Various national results board
19 Mahendra Chaudhry's SLP Headquarters
20. SLP supporters jubilant
STORYLINE:
A former Fijian Prime Minister and the coup leader who drove him from office at gunpoint were both elected to Parliament on Wednesday in a vote aimed at restoring democracy to the troubled South Pacific nation.
Mahendra Chaudhry, who was Fiji's first ethnic Indian prime minister, won his district in the Indian stronghold in the west.
Coup leader George Speight also won a seat in the legislature 16 months after he and a gang of gunmen stormed its debating chamber to overthrow the Pacific nation's democratically elected government.
Speight narrowly won the Tailevu North Fijian communal seat for the Conservative Alliance, a nationalist party demanding that indigenous Fijians control political power in their homeland.
Speight supporters gathered at a school in Fiji's capital, Suva, danced and cheered when they heard the result.
Speight remains in custody on an island off Suva awaiting trial on treason charges stemming from the coup. He faces a maximum death penalty if convicted.
Chaudhry and most of his Cabinet were held for eight weeks before being released after a new Fijian-dominated government was installed by the military.
Speight was allowed to stand in the election because he has never to date been convicted of a serious crime.
Chaudhry's main rival for power, military-installed interim Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase, also won his seat. Qarase, an indigenous Fijian, immediately ruled out working with Chaudhry.
"I'm not prepared to work with Chaudhry. Either he forms the government or I form the government," Qarase said.
Chaudhry's Labour Party took 19 of the 34 seats announced by midday Wednesday. Thirty-seven seats are still being contested.
Fijians and Indians vote in racially separate electorates under the country's 1997 constitution.
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