SUVA, Fiji, Jan. 2 (UPI) -- Fiji will lift martial law and begin work on a new constitution that will lead to new elections in 2014, Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama said Monday.
Bainimarama, the South Pacific island nation's military strongman, announced in his New Year's message he would lift the state of emergency, which took effect in 2009, on Saturday, Voice of America reported.
He said he would announce soon a nationwide consultation for a new constitution that would establish a democratically elected government.
"The constitution must establish a government that is founded on an electoral system that guarantees equal suffrage," the Fiji Times quoted Bainimarama as saying.
"A truly democratic system based on the principle of one person, one vote, one value. We will not have a system that will classify Fijians based on ethnicity; and our young men and women, those 18 years old, must have the right to vote."
While laying out values to underlie the constitution, he did not provide specifics about what would replace martial law, VOA said.
Bainimarama seized power in a bloodless coup in December 2006, when he called the ruling political classes corrupt and said the voting system at the time was racially biased, giving indigenous Fijians more voting power than ethnic Indians who comprise about 35 percent of Fiji's 900,000 people.
"We must all remember that public order, protecting the vulnerable and safeguarding the economy, will always be paramount," he said. "We must also as a nation be intolerant of those that seek refuge and political power in religious, ethnic and communal divisions," he said.
Strict regulations, including news media censorship and a ban on public meetings, took effect after a Fiji court ruled Bainimarama's military coup illegal.
He has broken earlier pledges to return to democracy and has faced pressure from other countries to do so.
