Fiji's police and armed forces yesterday began preparing for fresh unrest as partial results from last week's elections left Mr Mahendra Chaudhry, the prime minister deposed in last year's coup, on track for a return to power.
With 51 of the 71 seats in the national assembly declared, Mr Chaudhry's Fiji Labour Party (FLP) had won 24, putting it in sight of an overall majority.
"I think we will have the numbers," he predicted. Mr Chaudhry Fiji's first leader to be drawn from the Pacific nation's large Indian minority.
Mr George Speight, the leader of the coup which deposed Mr Chaudhry in the name of the indigenous Fijian population, also won a seat in the assembly but will not be able to take it up as he is in prison awaiting trial for treason.
With the election results mirroring Fiji's racial divide - 51 per cent of the 800,000 population are indigenous Fijian while 44 per cent are of Indian origin - the police and the army mounted a national security operation in apparent anticipation of an attempt to oust the new administration.
The exercise, which included the staging of a mock riot in central Suva, was announced by Senior Superintendent Romanu Tikotikoca 90 minutes before it began. The officer said extra security measures were now being instituted to protect the incoming government.
"It is in our interests to ensure that the new government serves its full tenure of five years," he told reporters. Fiji has had three coups in the last four years - two in 1997 as well as last year's.
Mr Chaudhry, who won the last elections in May 1999, was in power for exactly a year before Mr Speight and a gang of special forces soldiers seized parliament and took the government hostage for 56 days.
The military later declared martial law.