Fiji's military chief claims to be in control of the country, while the elected prime minister was confined to his home in the South Pacific island nation undergoing its fourth coup in 20 years.
Army Commander Frank Bainimarama said he had taken over the role of the president and is dismissing Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase.
"The takeover will not be permanent, tomorrow I will summon the chief executive officers and charge them with the duty of running their own ministries until an interim government is appointed," Cmd. Bainimarama said.
The army commander had repeatedly threatened to topple Mr Qarase's government, which won a second five-year term in May, claiming it was corrupt and soft on those behind Fiji's last coup, in 2000.
"We trust that the new government will lead us into peace and prosperity and mend the ever-widening racial divide which currently besets our multi-cultural nation," he said.
Fiji's three earlier coups, the first in 1987, were racially motivated with indigenous Fijians fearing they would lose political control of their nation to ethnic Indian Fijians who already control the economy.
Mr Qarase said today that he is still prime minister. "I have been removed illegally," he said by telephone from inside his home guarded by troops.
"Fiji has now become a laughing stock in the international arena," he said as several hundred people gathered outside army barricades blocking off his street, singing hymns and praying.
Soldiers visited the main media outlets in Suva warning them not to publish propaganda against the military. The main newspaper, the Fiji Times, has suspended publication.
Cmd. Bainimarama said a caretaker prime minister would be appointed to dissolve parliament. He said he would surrender presidential powers next week, when Fiji's Great Council of Chiefs would be asked to reappoint President Ratu Josefa Iloilo to the post.
Mr Iloilo would then appoint an interim government to prepare the nation for fresh elections, but he gave no timetable for new elections.
Fiji's political crisis has alarmed South Pacific neighbours, with Australia sending three warships in case it needed to evacuate holidaying nationals. Cmd. Bainimarama has warned that his soldiers will oppose any foreign intervention.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard said Mr Qarase telephoned him this morning to seek Australia's intervention. "I did not think it was in Australia's national interest to become involved. The possibility of Australian and Fijian troops firing on each other in the streets of Suva was not a prospect that I, for a moment, thought desirable," Mr Howard said.
New Zealand also rejected a request by Mr Qarase to intervene. Both Australia and New Zealand said they would impose sanctions on Fiji's military and New Zealand would seek Fiji's expulsion from the Commonwealth.
New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark said Cmd. Bainimarama had taken "complete leave of his senses" and had "ripped up the country's constitution and thrown it out the window".