Fiji's Electoral History

Pre-Independence 1966 Election

Prior to independence, an election was contested by the major parties of the day- Alliance and the National Federation Party(NFP). The leader of the victorious Alliance Party, Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara was to lead the nation as the first Prime Minister in 1970. At that time A.D Patel was head of the opposition NFP. At that time, the proportion of General seats far outweighed the actual prorportion of General electors present in Fiji. It is also important to note that the foundation of race-based voting system evolved after this election. The Communal seats meant that only people of the candidates' race could vote for him/her, while National seats was meant for all races.
The 1970 constitution was formally adopted in 1970 with changes made to the racial composition of seats in the House of Repesentatives. The number of seats were increased to 52 with 12 Fijian Communal seats, 12 Indian Communal seats, 10 Fijian National seats, 10 Indian National seats, 3 General Communal seats and 5 General National seats.

Political Party	Fijian Communal	Fijian National	Indian Communal	Indian National	General Communal	General National	Party Total
Alliance	9	3	0	3	3	4	22
NFP	0	0	9	0	0	0	9
							31

1972 Election

The first election to be held since independence proved to be a landslide for the Alliance party, who derived the majority of its support from Fijian and General voters. The NFP, lead by Siddiq Koya - who had replaced A.D Patel - was largely backed by Indian voters. In later elections, the bi-Partisan nature of Fiji's politics became very much entrenched in the voter's psyche. Many times the election results were close and it always reflected a racial overtone.
The Alliance drew its mandate from the traditional Chiefs in the 14 provinces. Ratu Mara being the Tui Nayau enjoyed overall popularity, coming from a Chiefly Lauan family. The Alliance party also had its ethnic branches such as the General Electors Association and the Indian Alliance to cater the needs of non-indegenous supporters. This bears uncanny resemblence to Malaysias' ruling UMNO(United Malay National Organisation) party which is while ethnically Malay, has two allied politcal fronts of the Malaysian Chinese Association and the Malaysian Indian Congress(MIC).

Political Party	Fijian Communal	Fijian National	Indian Communal	Indian National	General Communal	General National	Party Total
Alliance	12	7	0	7	3	4	33
NFP	0	3	12	3	0	1	19
							52

1977 Election

1977 proved to be a turning point in Fiji's political history, where for the first time the Indian majority NFP defeated the Alliance party by a slim margin. This was greeted with apprehension by Fijians who were not prepared for an Indian leader. Consequently after delays and uncertainty over how the new government was to be sworn in, another election was called, at the insistence of Ratu Mara. In the events that followed, a split occurred in the NFP resulting in the Flower and Dove factions. Jai Ram Reddy emerged as leader of the Flower faction which became the dominant NFP faction.
It also interesting to note that two Fijian constituencies - the Serua/Namosi and Nadroga/Navosa - voted mainly for the Nationalists and Western United Front(WUF) respectively, as opposed to the Alliance Party. The Nationalists ' fiery strongman Sakeasi Butadroka campaigned under the banner of 'Fiji for Fijians'. WUF's charismatic leader Ratu Osea Gavidi championed the cause of disaffected Fijians living in western Viti Levu who felt deprived of political representation and share of economic wealth.

Political Party	Fijian Communal	Fijian National	Indian Communal	Indian National	General Communal	General National	Party Total
Alliance	10	3	0	3	3	5	24
NFP	0	7	12	7	0	0	26
Nationalist	1	0	0	0	0	0	1
WUF	1	0	0	0	0	0	1
							52

1982 Election

This was a tightly fought election with the Alliance winning by just 4 seats. In the end it was the crucial blue-ribbon National seats in South east Viti Levu that determined the final outcome. Future election outcomes were also dependent on these marginal seats.

Political Party	Fijian Communal	Fijian National	Indian Communal	Indian National	General Communal	General National	Party Total
Alliance	11	5	0	5	3	4	28
NFP-WUF	1	5	12	5	0	1	24
							52

Rise of Labour and the 1987 Election

If the 1982 electoral defeat of the NFP was due to factional in-fighting resulting from the 1977 re-election, 1987 proved to be the opposite. Back in 1985 the Fiji Labour Party whose support base came from Trade Unionists and Urban workers, made huge gains in nationwide municipal elections. In the process the FLP made new inroads into traditional NFP and Alliance strongholds, especially in urban areas. It also established its reputation as a multi-racial political entity and became an emerging third force.
Putting aside ideological differences, the NFP headed by Jai Ram Reddy formed a coalition with the FLP lead by Unionist Dr. Timoci Bavadra. Bavadra was to head this new NFP-FLP Coalition party. The Coalition Party's campaign strategy proved to be effective, with strong emphasis on a cleaner and caring government. It is also apparent that many urban indegenous Fijians were being disenchanted with the Alliance leadership by then.
This time the marginal seats were in favour of the Coalition, one of them being the hotly constested Suva/Tamavua Fijian National Seat. It was commonly thought that Ratu William Toganivalu of the Alliance with known connections to the Indian business community and Fijians would have it easy against FLP's Dr. Tupeni Baba. In the end the Suva academic won the seat by several hundred votes. The Coalition had effectively strengthened their electoral base by campaigning together, and in the process gaining both urban and rural support.
Almost immediately after the results were announced in April 19, and Coalition supporters were planning a massive celebration, there were signs of vehement opposition from the defeated Alliance supporters. There was a great sense of loss felt amongst many indegenous Fijians who were wary of the newly formed Coaltion government. Roadblocks were placed on major highways and arson attacks started to occur. The rally cry of 'Fiji for Fijians' became the main theme of the 5000 marchers who conveyed on the streets of Suva in April 25. And all this was happening while the Coalition government enjoyed barely one month in power.

Political Party	Fijian Communal	Fijian National	Indian Communal	Indian National	General Communal	General National	Party Total
Alliance	12	3	0	3	3	3	24
NFP-FLP	0	7	12	7	0	2	28
							52

The May 14 Coup

At the first commencement of parliament since the election, the speaker of the House Militoni Leweniqila had almost completed his speech, when at 10:00 am, the Fiji Military Forces under the command of Lt. Col. Sitiveni Rabuka staged Fiji's first military take-over. Within minutes parliament was interrupted, the Coalition members herded into military trucks and Fiji's Military Forces had taken control of the Governement Buildings. Democracy was taken away at gunpoint.
While an Interim Administration was in place, Ratu Mara chaired over a meeting in Deuba with Coalition members and other parties. A second coup was staged in September 1987 once again by Rabuka, thus suspending the Deuba Accord which was to see Fiji return to democracy under the old constitution. In 1990 the 1970 constitution was replaced with a more racially biassed constitution, favoring indegenous Fijians in terms of numerical superiority in the Lower House. The following decade was to see the implementation of affirmative action for indegenous Fijians and Rotumans empowering them in areas of commerce and finance. And it is during this period that the nouveau riche emerged amongst indegenous and Vasu families with ties to government.

1994 Election Under the 1990 Constitution

By the early 90s, Rabuka had earned a great deal of respect amongst Fijian voters as a commoner, as opposed to being one of the Ratus. He had formed his own politcal party the Soqosoqo Vakavulewa ni Taukei(SVT) with stong emphasis on preserving indegenous rights. He had also expressed interest in establishing democracy and partaking in elections. This was also a time when the Coalition party split into NFP and Labour factions campaigning on different platforms. This split the Indian vote even affected the cane growers movement, with the Kisan Sangh in favour of NFP and the Nation Farmers Union(NFU) being pro-Labour.

Political Party	Fijian Communal	Indian Communal	General Communal	Party Total
SVT	31	0	0	31
FAP	5	0	0	5
NVTLP	1	0	0	1
NFP	0	20	0	20
FLP	0	7	0	7
UGP	0	0	4	4
				68

The 1997 Constitution

As a gesture of reconciliation the Rabuka government decided that the future of Fiji depended on multi-ethnic harmony, which would also mean political power sharing. As a result a Constitutional Review committee was set up to design a new constitution to reflect the new vision. At the same time the leader of the opposition NFP, Jai Ram Reddy was ready to adopt a conciliatory approach to the SVT as opposed to FLP's more aggressive stance. The former New Zealand Governor General Sir Paul Reeves was to head the Constitution Review Committee, which was to take them to several countries around the world for further research and assessment. Otehr prominent members included Dr. Brij Lal and Tomasi Vakatora.
The end result was a new and revised 1997 constitution which replaced the 1990 constitution.

1999 Election Under the 1997 Constitution

With a new constitution in place, came a new voting process, whereby preferential voting was introduced for the first time. As if ethnic overtones and tight margin seats were not enough, some analysts predicted a disappointing outcome for certain parties. The May 1999 elections witnessed the largest number of parties vying for seats - 16 in total. It also saw potential rifts within the indegenous Fijian electorate, especially with the Fijian Association Party(FAP) and the Christain Democrats(VLV) competing against the SVT. The SVT in turn adopted a multi-party, multi-racial tactic by forming a coalition with the UGP and the NFP, in the hope of securing broad ethnic support.
Meanwhile the FLP under the leadership of Mahendra Chaudhry had already formed a political alliance with the FAP, VLV and PANU to form the People's Coalition. This unified party definitely had a strong indegenous mandate with Lauans backing the FAP among others. Thus we have two rival coalition fronts having multi-racial emphasis, a sharp contrast to the bi-partisan era of the 1970s and early 1980s.
The People's Coalition campaigned under the banner of 'Time for Change', while the SVT-NFP-UGP coalition stood on the platform of stability and unity. NFP was hoping that credit would be given to Reddy for allowing constitutional reform to happen in the first place. In only turned out that Indian voters rejected NFP outright in all constituencies, on the basis that their association with SVT was not a right move. And it was due to this action, that Rabuka in his departing speech blamed Indians for his coalitions' demise.
The ramifications of this bitterness came into reality 1 year later.

Political Party	Fijian Communal	Indian Communal	Rotuman Communal	General Communal	Open Seats	Party Total
SVT-NFP-UGP	5	0	0	1	4	10
Peoples Coalition (FLP-FAP-VLV-PANU)	16	19	0	0	20	55
NVTLP	1	0	0	0	0	1
Independent	1	0	1	2	1	5
						71

The May 19 Coup

It so happened that the opening of Parliament coincided with the first anniversary of the People's Coalition electoral victory exactly one year ago.

2001 Election

Political Party	Fijian Communal	Indian Communal	Rotuman Communal	General Communal	Open Seats	Party Total
SDL	18	0	0	1	13	32
FLP	0	19	0	0	8	27
MV	5	0	0	0	1	6
NLUP	0	0	0	1	1	2
NFP	0	0	0	2	1	1
UGP	0	0	0	1	0	1
Independent	0	0	1	0	1	2
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