In 1999, in accordance with these requirements, the Fiji government under Rabuka appointed army chief-of-staff and former navy commander Captain Bainimarama as the new military commander.^[13]His name was suggested by Brigadier General Ratu Epeli Ganilau, who was resigning as commander in order to contest – unsuccessfully as it turned out – as a candidate of the newly formed Veitokani ni Lewenivanua Vakarisito (VLV – Christian Democratic Party). The VLV was a chrysalis for Fijians aggrieved at Rabuka having usurped the leadership of the chief’s party and having compromised with the Indians. It gained the backing of the Methodist Church, called for a ban on Sunday trading and opposed the 1997 constitution’s concessions to multiracialism. The VLV’s core support was in the Tovata confederacy, including Lau, where President Ratu Mara’s daughter, Adi Koila Mara, won a seat, and Macuata, where his illegitimate son, Poseci Bune, took the Fijian communal seat. It was the VLV’s 19.4 per cent of the Fijian vote, and its strength in the marginal urban constituencies, that sank Rabuka’s SVT.^[14]Ratu Epeli Ganilau, although unsuccessful in his election bid in Rabuka’s home constituency of West Cakaudrove, was a contender for his father’s Tui Cakau title, the highest in Cakaudrove (on Vanua Levu). His wife was another of Ratu Mara’s daughters. Many suspected that Ratu Mara’s dynastic ambitions included both gaining control over the top Fijian chiefly titles and maintaining a firm grip over the senior command of the Fiji military forces.^[15]

As President, Ratu Mara was the commander-in-chief of the RFMF. He sympathized with the Labour-led People’s Coalition government that won the election in 1999 – probably more due to contempt for Rabuka than enthusiasm for Labour policies. But the marriage between the Mara dynasty and the People’s Coalition government was not sufficiently strong at that point for Ratu Epeli to accept an appointment through the Senate as minister of home affairs.^[16]Instead, the post went to the less-than-convincing Jioji Uluinakauvadra. Out of the limelight, the RFMF remained quiet. But it was well known in Fijian circles that Bainimarama, like Ratu Epeli, was a ‘Mara man’. Ratu Epeli was later to describe Bainimarama’s performance as head of the military as ‘excellent’.^[17]Bainimarama reciprocated after the 2006 coup by appointing members of the Mara dynasty to key positions – including Ratu Epeli Ganilau, first as minister for Fijian affairs and later as minister for defence, national security and immigration in the interim government; and Ratu Epeli Nailatikau (Adi Koila Mara’s husband) as minister of foreign affairs.

The political turmoil of 2000 focused attention more on splits in the military than on control of the military. About 30 rebel soldiers from the 80-strong Counter Revolutionary Warfare Unit (CRW) directly supported George Speight’s ‘civilian coup’, but they were soon eclipsed by an army intervention, which was widely welcomed for restoring stability and returning the country to civilian government. When the military took control on 29 May, Bainimarama said it did so ‘with much reluctance’.^[18] And when he announced the new cabinet to the press early in July, people saw a military stepping back in favour of a civilian interim government, rather than a military commander acting as kingmaker.^[19] Following the army mutiny in November 2000, when rebel soldiers conspired to kill Bainimarama, it was he who announced that ‘there would be no more coup d’états in Fiji’.^[20]The Fiji Daily Post went as far as naming Bainimarama ‘Man of the Year’ at the end of 2000, on the grounds that he had stood fast against those who broke the law.

Yet many people overlooked the extent to which Bainimarama had directed events – from abrogating the constitution and ensuring that Ratu Mara stood aside as President, to determining the way in which a new government would be appointed and who would head it. In effect – though few said so at the time – Bainimarama had conducted his own coup in 2000. While Bainimarama took key decisions behind the scenes, the military presented an acceptable face to the world through its articulate and presentable spokesmen, Lieutenant Colonel Filipo Tarakinikini and Major Howard Politini; both appeared regularly on TV news bulletins to explain developments. Tarakinikini, in particular, was the hero of many of those who opposed Speight after the May 2000 coup, until he fell out with the commander and left the country. News reports indicated that the RFMF favoured a modernist political trajectory, offering solutions, for example, to the vexatious land leasing controversy, and wanting an orientation that might elevate ethnic Fijians from their disadvantaged economic state.^[21]This led the RFMF to warmly endorse Qarase’s ‘Blueprint for the Protection of Fijian and Rotuman Rights and Interests and the Advancement of their Development’ presented to the GCC on 13 June 2000.^[22]

The November 2000 army mutiny, when disgruntled CRW soldiers made a second attempt to take over Fiji, appears to have profoundly affected the senior command in the RFMF. By then, George Speight was in detention on Nukulau Island but the instigators of the mutiny were determined to finish what he had started by killing the commander, deposing the interim government he had installed, and replacing it with a strongly pro-Fijian regime that would restore the political influence of Bau and the Kubuna confederacy in the affairs of the nation.^[23] The mutiny failed. Eight soldiers were killed and 28 were wounded, with the government declaring a curfew that lasted 36 hours. In the years that followed, Bainimarama would not forget the attempt on his life and would vow to ensure that those responsible were brought to justice and not given lenient treatment.^[24] The ideology that inspired the mutineers of 2000 – with its appeal not only to the special rights of indigenous Fijians but also to the cause of one group of Fijian chiefs over another – came to be anathema to him. Meantime, however, he talked sympathetically of improving the lot of indigenous Fijians and saw the restoration of the Chaudhry government as a threat to national security. In an affidavit to the High Court in 2001, the military commander said the RFMF believed that ‘in order to uphold the rule of law, maintain the credibility of the RFMF and ensure national security the nation cannot be allowed to revert to the pre-19 May 2000 status and must be projected forward as directed by the President’.^[25]When the courts upheld the constitution, against the wishes of the commander, the RFMF hoped that the President would not opt for fresh elections, but restore the 1999–2000 parliament – although with an ethnic Fijian, Dr Tupeni Baba, replacing Labour leader Mahendra Chaudhry as prime minister.^[26] It was the decision in favour of an election that, above all, opened the schism between Bainimarama and the man he intended only to serve as a technocrat and facilitator, Laisenia Qarase. As Bainimarama envisaged the post-coup future of Fiji, Qarase would prepare the way for a restoration of parliamentary democracy and then depart the stage.