Everybody knows Fiji ’s “Isa Lei” as a tourist goodbye song, but among the Fijians themselves it carries the burden that nothing will ever quite be the same again.
The two words, isa lei, are about extreme and heartfelt vakanananu or nostalgia with emotions of loss, grief and emptiness.
“Isa Lei, the purple shadows fall,” says the song, “sad the morrow will dawn upon my sorrow, oh forget not when you are far away, precious moments beside the Suva bay.”
Ramshackle and filled with plotting, Suva is a hard town to love and this weekend as the fog of political intrigue fills the deep valleys of surrounding mountains, the nation of 846,085 is on edge awaiting the outcome of general elections.
Who ever wins – current prime minister Laisenia Qarase or coup deposed premier Mahendra Chaudhry – a fraught couple of weeks is ahead trying to build coalitions.
Watching on will be the commander of the Fiji Military Forces (RFMF), Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama, 51, who shows a distressing willingness to meddle with the political process.
Although policies and platforms have featured in the dozens of “shed meetings” at the heart of the elections a complex racial equation. Indigenous Fijians make up 55 percent of the population against ethnic Indo-Fijians who account for 37 percent, down from 51 percent in 1966.
Behind it is a nastier battle within the indigenous Fijians and it was this struggle that played out in the 2000 coup which overthrew the year old regime Chaudhry government. He was the first Indo-Fijian leader, but the very nature of the coup itself and what followed hinted at the war between Fijians; Polynesian from the Lau group in eastern Fiji against the Melanesians of the traditional powerhouse Bau. Indigenous Fiji was never truly united; the Bauans have always colonised the rest and this tension fuels a nagging power struggle.
Ten days after convicted traitor George Speight had taken the Chaudhry Government hostage, Commodore Bainimarama, a Bauan, led a delegation to Government House and forced President Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara – a Lauan – to step down.
"This election should not be about race, about language, about coups, about an Indian or Fijian prime minister," Mr Chaudhry, 64, says. "It should be about the people. It should be about what matters to the people.”
Mr Qarase says Fiji is a "young democracy" and its not ready for an Indo-Fijian leader.
In a “blame the victim” mentality Mr Chaudhry’s Fiji Labour Party that led the country into turmoil.
"There is no guarantee that they will lead our country peacefully into the future. We must have our properties and our homes protected."
Mr Qarase, 65, who won general elections in 2001 at the head of the newly formed and still disjointed Soqosoqo Duavata Lewenivanua, is from Lau and Commodore Bainimarama has threatened several times to remove him from office.
The military commander now says they will accept anyone as prime minister.
"Let me tell you that anyone can be a better prime minister than what we have had in the last five years."
This is the third election using the complex “alternative vote” preferential system where voters can list their candidates in preference, or vote for just a single candidate and let the party determine the preferences on each ballot paper.
The 338 candidates from 12 parties and independents have competed for the 71 seats, organised on racial lines.
The winner will inherit a country facing monumental security and economic problems.
Mr Qarase has already said if he returns to office his government will pass its controversial reconciliation bill aimed at freeing many of those convicted for their role in the 2000 coup.
Commodore Bainimarama, who was the target of mutineers who tried to kill him in 2000, will not accept that. In reply Mr Qarase has a secret White Paper to table on the future of the RFMF – severely downsized and the commodore out of a job.
On top of that security worry, the sugar industry on the point of collapse, taking with it around 30 percent of the gross national product and tourism has this year seen a 20 percent drop in visitors.
Its current biggest income earner, mercenary work in Iraq , has gone distressingly bad, with eight killed in the last fortnight, taking to 16 the number killed in two years.
The around 4000 Fijians in Iraq -- a mixture of RFMF working for the United Nations, guarding witnesses at the trial of Saddam Hussein and hundreds of ex-soldiers working as security guards -- earn Fiji over F$300 million (NZ$275 million) a year. Replacing that money if Fijians leave is all but impossible leaving the country with an unfortunate pact make in hell.
When Ratu Mara’s father Tevita Uluilakeba wrote Isa Lei in 1918 it was to say goodbye to a Tongan girl he had fallen in love with. These days, for those of us who’ve made Suva a second home, the whole place has a sadness about it, country rich in resources, talent, people and yet ensnared in a endless power struggles.