September 12, 2001: New Fiji cabinet takes oath

2001 - Newly-elected Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase defied the constitution and shut the Labour Party out of his new cabinet, but included supporters of George Speight, whose coup toppled the government last year. Qarase, an indigenous Fijian, named 18 members of his new cabinet, which will have 20 posts. None of them were from the ethnic Indian-dominated Fiji Labor Party. The decision underlined the deep rift that divides Fiji’s two dominant ethnic groups. The cabinet ministers were sworn in by President Ratu Josefa Iloilo at Government House. Qarase published a letter in which he told Labor leader Mahendra Chaudhry, deposed as prime minister in Speight’s May 2000 nationalist coup, that Labor would “not contribute to a stable and workable government”.

Other important events

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1959 - Soviet Union launches Luna 2, the first spacecraft to reach the moon.

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