Fiji president takes over and says will name new government

SUVA (Reuters) - Fiji's president revoked the politically unstable South Pacific nation's constitution on Friday, named himself to replace temporarily a post-coup interim government and called for fresh elections by 2014.

President Ratu Josefa Iloilo, who also sacked the judiciary, said he would appoint a new interim government soon but gave no firm time-frame.

His moves come after an interim government headed by military commander Commodore Frank Bainimarama since a bloodless 2006 coup was declared illegal by Fiji's Court of Appeal on Thursday.

Fiji has suffered four coups and a bloody military mutiny since 1987, mainly as a result of tensions between the majority indigenous Fijian population and the economically powerful ethnic Indian minority.

Fijian media reported that Information Ministry officials had told them some emergency powers would be enforced under rules which allow for security forces to prohibit and disperse public gatherings, impose curfews and close roads.

"Let me assure all of you that the basic human rights of all citizens shall be protected in the new legal order," Iloilo said.

"Let me also assure you that I have the full support of all our security forces," the ageing and ailing president said in a national broadcast from his sprawling, colonial-era presidential residence overlooking the harbour in the capital, Suva.

Bainimarama denied he had influenced Iloilo's decision to throw out the 1997 constitution after Thursday's court decision rendered his government illegal under that document.

"I explained to him the result of the court case, the appeal, and I guess he came up with that on his own," Bainimarama told Radio Australia.