KEY POINTS:
After what was beginning to look like slow but steady progress over the past couple of months to win over the international community with its plans to hold elections in 2009, Fiji's interim administration has taken a great public relations leap backwards with the re-imposition of emergency provisions.
The administration has been at pains to emphasise that the emergency is temporary and is directed specifically at ousted Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase, who returned to Suva this month after a court ruled that he was free to travel anywhere in the country.
Qarase had been sent off to his native Mavana Island, a couple of hours flight southeast of Fiji's main island, just days after last December's military takeover.
After his return to Suva, Qarase made statements on a range of issues in both the domestic and international media.
He said he had received death threats on phone just before he left for Suva from someone who claimed to be from the military and that his driver was detained and beaten up. Both allegations were denied by the regime.
Later, rather ingenuously, he extended the olive branch to the regime offering to work with it to bring back democracy, but was rebuffed.
In reimposing the emergency provisions, the interim leadership has not only invited an avalanche of criticism from the international community, but has put at risk much needed aid, especially from the European Union, which had put in place a funding schedule based on the 2009 election promise.
In repeatedly emphasising that the emergency was directed at just one man, it has given the impression that it fears Qarase's potential to stage a come back: it has put the spotlight back on Qarase, giving him the aura of a much-wronged underdog.
It is not as if reimposing the emergency was the only option left for self-appointed Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama. He had other, perhaps less contentious, choices.
He could have put Qarase on the next plane back to Mavana, just as Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf did to former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif as soon as he landed in Karachi after a seven-year exile .
He could also have taken him into custody for attempting to stoke communal passions and disturbing the peace. Although those actions would have brought their own share of criticism, it would perhaps not be as severe as the international reaction to the of the emergency.
Bainimarama believes that most western countries especially Australia, New Zealand and the United States have a poor understanding of the reality in Fiji.
Citing several occasions where political statements have led to communal violence, some observers in Fiji say the emergency provision was the only option that adequately addressed the regime's perception of a threat.
The regime has said the Army would not be back on the streets during the course of the present emergency and that there would be no roadblocks or any inconvenience to the public.
A senior source in the interim administration said the international community had got it wrong if it thought the emergency was an attempt to delay the election.
This week, census enumerators had begun visiting households. The census is being undertaken after a lapse of 11 years and will help put together electoral rolls for the planned elections in 2009.
