At a special meeting in Vanuatu, ministers from the 16-member South Pacific Forum endorsed a report condemning last year's putsch and concluding that elections could be held at least a year earlier than the military leader's timetable of 2010.

"The takeover of government by the Republic of Fiji Military Forces was unconstitutional and unacceptable," the ministers said in a statement after the meeting.

"The interim government should commit to a firm timetable for a national election which ... should be held in between 18 months and two years, if not sooner," they said.

Armed forces commander Commodore Frank Bainimarama drew international condemnation by ousting the elected government of Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase on Dec. 5. Bainimarama says he will restore democracy through elections held not before 2010, after he has weeded out alleged corruption and overseen a full review of the electoral infrastructure.

The report to the South Pacific Forum urged Bainimarama to stand down and appoint a civilian leader, and to shorten the election timetable.

New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters said the forum "strongly endorsed" the report, which rejected the military's timetable as "excessive."

The decision was "a landmark for the Pacific Forum because it sets out their belief in democratic institutions being maintained in the Pacific," Peters told The Associated Press.

Fiji's Foreign Minister Ratu Epeli Nailatikau and Attorney General Aiyez Faed Khaiyum attended the meeting, telling their counterparts the regime might be able to speed up the timeframe if it received international assistance.

Peters said Australia, New Zealand and the British Commonwealth grouping of 54 nations stood ready to help ensure credible elections were held, but only if the regime adopts the two-year timetable.

"If it does not, it is certainly not unconditional, unqualified support," he said.

Ministers also endorsed the report's condemnation of alleged rights abuses by Fiji's military. It said up to 200 people had been threatened, intimidated and beaten for their opposition to the coup.

Bainimarama says he took power to clean up alleged corruption during Qarase's administration, and to prevent the passing of laws pardoning plotters of a 2000 coup and handing lucrative land rights to indigenous Fijians.

Qarase, who has been banished to his remote home island, vowed Thursday to contest the next elections.

Meanwhile, international credit rating agency Standard & Poors lowered Fiji's sovereign credit rating to "B" from "B+" today, warning that external pressures "may continue to mount in the face of political uncertainty and a pattern of large current account deficits."