Ahmed Ali (politician)
Overview
Fiji
Fiji , officially the Republic of Fiji , is an island nation in Melanesia in the South Pacific Ocean about northeast of New Zealand's North Island...
an academic and politician who held Cabinet
Cabinet (Fiji)
Fiji has the Westminster system - executive authority is vested nominally in a President, but exercised in practice by a Cabinet of Ministers, presided over by the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister is formally appointed, but not chosen, by the President: the President must appoint as Prime...
office several times from the late 1970s onwards. Unlike the majority of his fellow Indo-Fijians, he was aligned with the Alliance Party of Prime Minister Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara
Kamisese Mara
Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, CF, GCMG, KBE is considered the founding father of the modern nation of Fiji. He was Chief Minister from 1967 to 1970, when Fiji gained its independence from the United Kingdom, and, apart from one brief interruption in 1987, the first Prime Minister from 1970 to 1992...
in the 1970s and 1980s, and with the United Fiji Party of Laisenia Qarase
Laisenia Qarase
Laisenia Qarase is a Fijian political figure. He served as the sixth Prime Minister of Fiji from 2000 to 2006. After the military quashed the coup that led to the removal of Mahendra Chaudhry, Qarase joined the Interim Military Government as a financial adviser on 9 June 2000, until his appointment...
in the early 2000s. He was one of only two Indo-Fijians to agree to serve in the interim government established in the wake of two military coups
Fiji coups of 1987
The Fiji coups of 1987 resulted in the overthrow of the elected government of Fijian Prime Minister Timoci Bavadra, the deposition of Elizabeth II as Queen of Fiji, and in the declaration of a republic...
carried out to assert indigenous
Fijian people
Fijian people are the major indigenous people of the Fiji Islands, and live in an area informally called Melanesia. The Fijian people are believed to have arrived in Fiji from western Melanesia approximately 3,500 years ago, though the exact origins of the Fijian people are unknown...
political supremacy in 1987.
Ali was a descendant of Indian indentured labourers brought to Fiji between 1879 and 1916.
Quotations
"If only people could follow the example set by Dr Ali then Fiji would be a better country." 
(Senator George Cakobau, Jr.|Ratu George Cakobau, 13 June 2005)
"He was from the old school of those who would differ vigorously with you, but be able to present his different views with dignity."
(Senator Qoriniasi Bale, Attorney General of Fiji, 13 June 2005)
----