elected, but Tora himself lost his seat. Embittered by his defeat, Tora blamed Indo-Fijian voters for rejecting him. He resigned from PANU and became a vocal opponent of the new Chaudhry government. Following a coup d'état in May 2000, Tora was appointed Minister for Agriculture, Fishing, Forests, and the Agriculture Land Tenants Act (ALTA) in the interim government formed by Laisenia Qarase in July. After an election to restore democracy in September 2001, Qarase appointed Tora to the Senate, as one of nine prime ministerial nominees in the 32-member Senate. Tora announced his retirement from active politics on 28 February 2006. Fiji Village revealed that in a letter to People's National Party President Meli Bogileka, Tora had tendered his resignation as vice-president of the party, and also withdrew his membership of the party. He said that he would continue to speak out on areas of concern, however. These included what he called the "insubordination" of the Military, adding that repairing the damage done to the reputation of the Army would take a long time. The Fiji Sun reported the following day that he had made the decision to retire following the recent death of his wife. He was now 72, he said in his resignation letter, and felt that the negative aspects of his political life now outweighed the positive. Tora's opponents, including Lekh Ram Vayeshnoi of the Fiji Labour Party (FLP) and Raman Pratap Singh of the National Federation Party (NFP) were quoted in the Fiji Sun on 16 March 2006 as welcoming Tora's retirement. They expressed their respect for the man despite fundamental disagreements with his nationalist views. Alleged involvement in the 2000 coup In August 2005, Tora spoke out to defend his role in the Taukei Movement of 2000. He insisted that it was never the intention of the movement to overthrow the Chaudhry government, but another group had taken advantage of its march to engage in vandalism. In an angry reaction on 24 August, Commodore Bainimarama accused Tora of using fear to influence voters in the upcoming election by threatening instability if indigenous Fijian parties do not win. Bainimarama said that Tora himself has a case to answer for his activities during the 2000 crisis. 'In 2000, Apisai Tora and a group of people at the Fijian Holdings boardroom, requested me as commander of the Military to remove Tui Vuda, Ratu Iloilo – whilst he was