Lala Mara

Their eldest son, Ratu Finau Mara, served as a member of the House of Representatives and of the Cabinet throughout the 1990s, and led the Fijian Association Party from 1996 to 1998.

On 12 November 2003, Radio New Zealand reported that Adi Lala had bitterly accused some chiefs, whom she did not name, of having been involved in the coup d'état which deposed her husband from the presidency in May 2000 and also toppled the elected government.

Allegations were subsequently made in Parliament, however, that she had suffered a fatal heart attack after hearing the distressing news that her son-in-law, Ratu Epeli Ganilau, was to be dismissed as Chairman of the Great Council of Chiefs, which was "the last straw" after her husband's death three months earlier.

Adi Lala was succeeded as Roko Tui Dreketi by her younger sister, Ro Teimumu Vuikaba Kepa, who also served as Minister for Education in the Qarase government from 2000 to 2006.

Earlier, Ro Epeli Mataitini, the Younger brother of the official Vunivalu (a Chiefs Right Hand) for the Roko Tui Dreketi, had spoken of the love and respect that Fijians had for Adi Lala.

While humans planned their future, he said, God always had the final say in people's lives, which was why it was so important to appreciate and maintain the links that bound Fiji's chiefly clans together.