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Legislative
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Until the abolishment ofcommunal constituencies in the Fijianelectoral system in 2014, there was very little cross-ethnic voting inFiji.[1] In communal constituencies, electors enrolled asethnic Fijians,Indo-Fijians,Rotuman Islanders, orGeneral electors (Europeans, Chinese,Banaba Islanders, and others) vote for a candidate of their own respective ethnic groups, in constituencies that have been reserved by ethnicity. Other methods of choosingparliamentarians came and went, but this feature was a constant until their final abolition in the2013 Constitution.[citation needed]
In 1904, the Britishcolonial authorities reserved seven seats in theLegislative Council for European voters; in 1929, provision was made for wealthy Indians to elect one representative also. Although the number allocated to the various ethnic communities varied over the years, the basic manner of election did not change. It avoided electoral competition between candidates of different races.[citation needed]
With the constitutional reform of 1936, three Indian members of the Legislative Council were chosen by voters in communal constituencies.[2] Indigenous Fijians, however, were represented by five nominees of the governor advised by theGreat Council of Chiefs and did not vote directly for their representatives until 1963.[2] The philosophy at the time was that this model reflected the communalism of village life; that cultural identity took priority over individual interests; and that chiefs were best placed to represent ethnic Fijians.[2]
In the 1960s, the Indo-Fijian dominatedNational Federation Party (NFP) began to press foruniversal suffrage on a common voters' roll. Indigenous Fijian leaders opposed this demand, fearful that it would favour Indo-Fijians, who then comprised more than half of the country's population. As a compromise, a number ofnational constituencies were established, allocated ethnically but elected by universal suffrage, but 25 of the 36 seats in the Legislative Council remained communal.
Negotiations leading to independence from the United Kingdom were complicated by continuing demands from the NFP for a non-racial franchise. The death of the NFP founderA.D. Patel in October 1969, however, led to his replacement bySidiq Koya, who was more flexible and enjoyed a personal rapport withRatu Sir Kamisese Mara, theChief Minister and leader of theAlliance Party, which represented mostly indigenous Fijians. Koya and Mara agreed to a compromise at a conference in London in April 1970, which reduced the ratio of communal constituencies over national constituencies and left open the possibility of a future move to a common voters' roll. They agreed to establish a 52-memberHouse of Representatives with 27 communal and 25 national constituencies. Indigenous Fijians and Indo-Fijians were each allocated 12 communal constituencies; minority groups were allocated 3.
TheFiji coups of 1987 were orchestrated by hardline Fijianethno-nationalists who forced the abolition of the national constituencies, on the grounds that they gave a non-indigenous voters a say in who represented the indigenous Fijian community. The revisedconstitution made all parliamentary seats communal, with a built-in indigenous majority. 37 seats were allocated to indigenous Fijians and 27 to Indians, despite the near parity of their population numbers at that time. 5 seats were assigned to minority groups.
The constitution was revised again in 1997–1998. A constitutional commission chaired bySir Paul Reeves, a formerGovernor General ofNew Zealand, recommended retaining 25 communal constituencies, along with 45 newly createdopen constituencies, to be elected by universal suffrage and contested by candidates from all races. The rulingSoqosoqo ni Vakavulewa ni Taukei of Prime MinisterSitiveni Rabuka and the National Federation Party (which had formerly advocated a common roll) saw the communal seats allocated to indigenous Fijians and Indo-Fijians respectively as their power base, and insisted on reversing the ratio. Consequently, 23 seats were allocated to indigenous voters, 19 to Indo-Fijians, 1 toRotuman Islanders, and 3 to minority groups; the remaining 25 represented open constituencies.
In the 1999 elections, the size of the overall Fijian vote across all communal constituencies was 179,218, while the vote for all Fijian parties and independents in open constituencies was 177,490.[3]
Multiracial citizens were formerly required to enroll on the General Electors's roll, or according to the race of their father. In the 1990s,Chinese-Fijian businessman and politicianJames Ah Koy challenged this rule in court. The law, and later the Constitution, were consequently amended to allow persons with multiple ethnic origins to register on any communal roll for which any of their ancestors, in either the male or female line, would have qualified. Many Fijian citizens of mixed Fijian and European origin, commonly known asVasus, have since transferred from the General Electors' communal roll to the Fijian one.
This generated some controversy in the leadup to theparliamentary election scheduled for 2006.United Peoples Party leaderMick Beddoes expressed concern that electoral officials were encouraging members of minority communities to register on the Fijian communal roll, and were failing to provide them with the necessary forms to enroll as General Electors.
