Crown Prince Tupouto’a ‘Ulukalala and Ratu Tevita Mara in 2016 Photo: Linny Folau / Matangi Tonga
Former senior Fijian military officer Ratu Tevita Uluilakeba Mara is expected to confirm if he accepts the traditional approach made to him by his elders to be installed as the next high chief of Lau.
The Tonga-based chief, the son of the former Prime Minister of Fiji, Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, received a delegation from the elders of the island of Nayau in Lau last week while visiting Suva.
They traditionally approached him to agree to be installed as the next Turaga na Tui Nayau, Sau ni Vanua o Lau, the chiefly title last held by his late father.
Ratu Tevita returned to Fiji last week after 12 years, after the new Sitiveni Rabuka-led Coalition government gave him the okay to return home, lifting restrictions put in place by the former Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama and his government.
In Fiji he was able to meet close family members and relatives.
He and his family will now discuss the traditional approach made for his installation before confirming their decision.
Falling out
Ratu Tevita said the trip to Fiji was a great experience.
"It was a short, well-earned trip, seems like I had only left Fiji for a short time even though I was away for 12 years," Ratu Tevita told RNZ Pacific from Nuku'alofa.
Ratu Tevita has been living in Tonga since 2011, after he asked for assistance in his bid to evade a charge of mutiny that the Bainimarama government had against him and then fellow senior military officers Brigadiers General Pita Driti and Mohammed Aziz.
He had helped Frank Bainimarama's coup in 2006 but was later accused of mutiny and, while on bail, fled to Tonga.
Ratu Tevita was facing sedition charges but had claimed at the time he was on a fishing trip when he was rescued by the Tongan Navy patrol boat.
His escape was labelled as "illegal" by Bainimarama, which was followed by a political back-and-forth between the two nations.
Ratu Tevita told media around the Pacific that he had dropped his support of the military strongman after he had discarded his own road map for elections to be held by 2010.
He said at the time, in 2011, that he feared being tortured if he returned to his home country under Bainimarama's rule.
He called for Bainimarama to step down and for the public emergency regulations that were in place at the time to be abolished.
While in Tonga, he has been living in Nuku'alofa and working as an advisor to the King, to whom he is related.