HILL: The last time I was in Fiji Mr Sayed-Khaiyum you very kindly invited me to a meeting of the Nadi Chamber of Commerce, and you gave a speech in which you outlined
your plans to hold the elections in 2014 and
the President of the Nadi Chamber of Commerce got up and made a speech in which he said for God sake, put it off as long as you like, don't let the politicians back in, they'll just wreck the whole thing. And he got cheers and applause. I think there was one man who shouted out that he disagreed, but all the businessmen there in Nadi said yeah please don't let the politicians back in. But there was a substantial body of opinion that actually supported what the interim government is doing. So it's not just as straightforward as you say is it Dr Lal?
LAL: Well I think this is the point, that one should not construe that kind of applause as support. This is contingent support, not absolute. I mean this applause, somebody else tomorrow whoever is in power.
They have no conscience, no sense of morality, no civic duty, many of them probably have their investment overseas, they have PR overseas, they're in Fiji to make money and as long as they can get what they want, they don't really care. So I would not necessarily accept that kind of behaviour on the part of the President of the Nadi Chamber of Commerce as being typical of people throughout the country. Yes businessmen they change their tune according to what will get them the best results which is making profit at the expense of everything else.
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