Fiji's deposed prime minister, Mr Mahendra Chaudhry, said today he had accepted an invitation from the country's new prime minister to join his government.
"If you could be in government, what fool in politics would want to be in the opposition?" Mr Chaudhry told reporters after accepting the invitation from Prime Minister Mr Laisenia Qarase.
"It's serious business running a strife-torn country like ours," said Mr Chaudhry, an ethnic Indian who was thrown from office in a racially inspired coup in May 2000.
However, Mr Qarase has appealed to Mr Chaudhry not to accept any posts. "I have made no secret that I would be happy if he did not accept because it would be an unworkable government," Mr Qarase told reporters. Mr Qarase was sworn in as prime minister today after his nationalist party won 31 seats in the 71-seat parliament in post-coup elections that ended last Friday.
Mr Chaudhry's ethnic Indian Labour party won only 27 seats, but any party with eight seats must be invited to join the government under Fiji's multi-racial 1997 constitution.