Fiji's new Prime Minister sworn in

SUVA, Fiji -- Fiji's former prime minister insisted Monday on a role in the new government, throwing into question the nation's chances for political stability hours after it returned to democratic rule. \nLabor Party leader Mahendra Chaudhry said his party would exercise its constitutional right to take almost half the posts in the Cabinet of Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase. \n"If we have the opportunity to be in government, which fool would want to be in opposition?" Chaudhry said. \nUnder Fiji's constitution, any party with more than eight seats must be invited to take part in government, with its share of Cabinet portfolios based on the number of lawmakers it has in the 71-seat Parliament. \nWhile Labor will be in government, the party remains in a minority within Parliament, limiting its ability to influence legislation. \nIn elections last month, Qarase's Fijian United Party won 31 seats and Labor 27. The hardline nationalist Conservative Alliance took six seats and a bloc of moderate parties and independents garnered six. Voting in one seat was postponed because a candidate died during campaigning. \nIt was not immediately clear if Chaudhry's announcement would affect plans to install Qarase's Cabinet on Wednesday. \nQarase, a banker installed by the army as Fiji's caretaker premier following last year's nationalist coup, was sworn in Monday, returning the ethnically divided nation to democratic rule. \n"I feel privileged and honored to be appointed prime minister," Qarase, an indigenous Fijian, said after the ceremony. "Fiji should have a fairly stable government during the next five years and beyond." \nQarase's appointment effectively gives the hardline nationalist coup plotters what they were demanding, a return of political power to indigenous Fijians. \nChaudhry, the first prime minister from Fiji's 44-percent ethnic Indian minority, was ousted in last year's coup. \nMany indigenous Fijians, who make up 51 percent of the country's 820,000 people, believe Indians, first brought to the country in the 19th century to work in sugar cane fields, wield too much political and economic clout. \nQarase did not immediately react to Chaudhry's announcement, but earlier indicated he did not want the party in his administration. \n"I have made no secret that I will be happy if he (Chaudhry) does not accept an invitation to join the government," Qarase said. "It will be an unworkable government if he does. It will never work." \nQarase shunned the support of the Conservative Alliance because in return for their backing, they were demanding amnesty and pardon for one of their elected legislators, coup leader George Speight, and his fellow conspirators. \nSpeight was elected from his jail cell where he is awaiting trial with 12 key aides on treason charges stemming from the coup that carry the death sentence. \nUnder Fiji law, President Iloilo appoints as prime minister the person he believes can muster majority support in the country's Parliament. \nParliament is expected to sit for the first session of the new government next month, 17 months after masked gunmen led by Speight stormed into the debating chamber to take Chaudhry and his Cabinet hostage, holding them for 56 days. \nFiji has been disrupted by three armed coups since 1987, and many see Qarase as the country's last chance for stability. Thousands of skilled ethnic Indians have fled to other countries in the wake of the coups and renewed tensions between the two main racial groups.