Sugar City Ratepayers Alliance
The Sugar City Ratepayers Alliance (SCRA) was a Fijian political party that operated only on the municipal level, in the city of Lautoka. It was founded early in 2005 with a view to contesting the municipal elections to the Lautoka City Council, scheduled for 22 October 2005. It failed to win any seats, however, either in the main election, or in the special election on 12 November for four seats in the Simla ward, which had been postponed. The party contested the election on an anti-corruption platform. The Fiji Labour Party, which dominated the council, had recently suspended nine councillors - its entire council membership - in the wake of revelations that they had granted taxi bases to friends and colleagues. The SCRA called for the same standards of accountability that are required of parliamentarians to be applicable to municipal councillors. The SCRA welcomed the Labour Party's decision to suspend its councillors, but claimed that the move did not go far enough. Alliance chairman Faaiaz Ali said that the same rules that required members of Parliament suspended from their parties to resign should be applied to local government office holders, as with no party to answer to, they could be