Filipe Bole

Filipe Nagera Bole (born 23 August 1936) is a Fijian politician who hails from the village of Mualevu on the island of Vanua Balavu in the Lau Group. He has long had a reputation as one of Fiji's few politicians untainted by scandal, and is noted for his moderate views. In October 2003, he endorsed calls for an end to racially segregated voting, saying that electing all members of the House of Representatives by universal suffrage would make voters and politicians think of the common national good, rather than communal interests.

He was educated at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, and at Auckland Teachers College. He subsequently worked as a teacher in Fiji, before going into the civil service where he served from 1972 to 1980 in a number of government departments. He was also a member of the Council of the University of the South Pacific in Suva from 1974 to 1980. He was Fiji's Ambassador to the United States and the United Nations from 1980 to 1983, when he became a project administrator of the Pacific Islands Development Program in Honolulu, Hawaii, where he remained till 1986.

Returning to Fiji, he entered politics and served as Minister for Education in 1986 and 1987. Following two coups d'état in 1987, he was appointed Minister for Foreign Affairs, holding office till 1988, then served as Minister for Youth and Sport from 1989 to 1992. Bole was elected to the House of Representatives in the election held to restore democracy in 1992, and was subsequently appointed Foreign Minister again. Apart from a brief interruption in 1994, he remained in this post until 1997. Bole was also Deputy Prime Minister for a short time in 1993. He transferred from the House of Representatives to the Senate in 1994 but remained in the Cabinet. While remaining Minister for Foreign Affairs, he concurrently held portfolios as Minister for Civil Aviation and Tourism from 1995 to 1996, and as Minister for National Development in 1997. That year, he became Minister for Information, a post he held till 1999 when his Soqosoqo ni Vakavulewa ni Taukei was defeated in the parliamentary election that May, an election in which Bole himself failed to win the Suva City Fijian Communal Constituency.

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