KEY POINTS:
Fiji coup leader Commodore Frank Bainimarama, has told Fiji Radio there will be no election next March.
He said the 2009 election timeline is unachievable, because the much needed electoral reforms cannot be done in the eight months to next March.
Cdre Bainimarama claimed he made the promise last year to Pacific Forum leaders about a March 2009 poll date, because he was led to believe the international community would be "flexible" if more time was needed.
He called off the elections during an interview today.
Cdre Bainimarama - who seized power in a bloodless coup in December 2006 - said the initial plan by Cabinet was to have elections in 2010 - even though there were no plans for electoral reform then.
And he said Pacific Islands Forum chairman and Tongan Prime Minister Dr Fred Savele told him the international community would be flexible if more time was needed.
"I came up with March 2009 at the Forum on the understanding if there's need to be an extension in time the international community will be very flexible," he said.
"Unfortunately for me that date was added in and written in blood by everyone in the international community."
Earlier this month New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters, Australian counterpart Stephen Smith and a group of Pacific ministers met Cdre Bainimarama in Suva amid concerns that he would renege on his election promise.
The group included senior politicians from Samoa, Papua New Guinea, Tonga and Tuvalu.
Australia, New Zealand and the United States already have a range of sanctions in place against people associated with the military government.
Separately, Fiji's recently-appointed Supervisor of Elections, Felicity Heffernan, is reported to have not started work in Suva as scheduled last Monday.
The Constitutional Offices Commission Chairman, Rishi Ram, told Radio Fiji she is being given until next week to take up office.
Ms Heffernan was nominated in May after another New Zealand candidate, Maurice Coughlan, withdrew once it became known that he had been disbarred in New Zealand in the early 1990s.
- NZPA
