SUVA - A minister in Fiji's post-coup, army-backed government was unexpectedly sworn in as prime minister on Wednesday and a spokesman said elections would be held soon.

Ratu Tevita Momoedonu was inaugurated in by President Ratu Josefa Iloilo during a ceremony convened hastily at Lautoka, on the northwest of Fiji's main island Viti Levu.

Momoedonu was labour minister in the post-coup government -- which has since been declared illegal -- and was also a minister in the multi-racial pre-coup government of Mahendra Chaudhry.

He was sworn in...this afternoon, Joji Kotobalavu, a spokesman for the prime minister's office, told Reuters.

Iloilo and the powerful Great Council of Chiefs, a gathering of indigenous rulers, have been trying to find a way out of Fiji's political crisis since the Court of Appeal ruled on March 1 that the military-backed government of interim Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase was illegal.

Qarase was installed after failed businessman George Speight, who proclaimed himself a champion of indigenous Fijians battling the economic supremacy of the Indian minority, took Chaudhry, Fiji's first ethnic Indian prime minister, hostage last May 19.

The two most likely options Iloilo had faced where to dissolve parliament and call elections or to appoint a government of national unity. There was no indication whether Iloilo will recall parliament.

NEW ELECTIONS SOON

Government spokesman Kotobalavu said Momoedonu would return to the capital Suva to name his cabinet ahead of a new general election, which he said would be called soon. Analysts have said elections could be expected in six to eight months.

He is coming in to Suva tomorrow to appoint his caretaker government until the elections, Kotobalavu said.

Momoedonu's appointment is a surprise move by Iloilo, who had been expected to name interim Prime Minister Qarase as caretaker premier leading to fresh elections later in 2001.

Since the court ruling, Iloilo has stressed the need to avoid the widespread violence against ethnic Indians which was sparked by Speight and his indigenous supporters. Indo-Fijians make up 44 percent of the population of 800,000 and dominate the sugar and tourism driven economy.

Chaudhry's People's Coalition, which won broad support in the Court of Appeal ruling on March 1, described Momoedonu's appointment as unconstitutional.

Members of the Qarase regime are desperately trying to get reappointed by the president, it said in a statement.

The Great Council of Chiefs said earlier on Wednesday it favoured early elections to end the political crisis.

But the chiefs, who drew up a six-point plan after meetings spanning a week, also said they would support whatever action the president takes.

The chiefs, an enclave of traditional rulers put in place in 1874 when Fiji was ceded to Britain as a colony, had expected Iloilo to seek legal advice over the next two days before announcing how he planned to return Fiji to democratic rule.

Iloilo and Momoedonu are from the same village of Viseisei, where Melanesian settlement of the 340 Fijian islands began. Dr Timoci Bavadra, prime minister of Fiji's first multi-racial government, was also from Viseisei.