Politics of Fiji take place within the framework of a parliamentary representative democratic republic. Fiji has a multiparty system with the Prime Minister of Fiji as head of government. The executive power is exercised by the government. Legislative power is vested in both the government and the Parliament of Fiji. The judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature.
The Rt. Hon. Mahendra Chaudhry is an Indo-Fijian and the leader of the Fiji Labour Party. Following a historic election in which he defeated the long-time former leader, Sitiveni Rabuka, the former trade union leader became Fiji's first Indo-Fijian Prime Minister on 19 May 1999, but exactly one year later, on 19 May 2000 he and most of his Cabinet were taken hostage by coup leader George Speight, in the Fiji coup of 2000. Unable to exercise his duties, he and his ministers were sacked by President Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara on 27 May; Mara intended to assume emergency powers himself but was himself deposed by the military leader, Commodore Frank Bainimarama. After 56 days in captivity, Chaudhry was released on 13 July and subsequently embarked on a tour of the world to rally support. He was one of the leading voices raised in opposition to the Qarase government's proposed Reconciliation and Unity Commission, which he said was just a mechanism to grant amnesty to persons guilty of coup-related offences. In January 2007 he was appointed as Minister of Finance, Sugar Reform Public Enterprise and National Planning in the interim Cabinet of Commodore Frank Bainimarama, following another coup. Chaudhry was also co-chair of the task force focusing on economic growth within the National Council for Building a Better Fiji. In 2008, he left the government and became an outspoken critic of it.
Timoci Uluivuda Bavadra was a Fijian medical doctor who founded the Fiji Labour Party and served as the Prime Minister of Fiji for one month in 1987.
The House of Representatives was the lower chamber of Fiji's Parliament from 1970 to 2006. It was the more powerful of the two chambers; it alone had the power to initiate legislation. The House of Representatives also had much greater jurisdiction over financial bills; the Senate could not amend them, although it might veto them. Except in the case of amendments to the Constitution, over which a veto of the Senate was absolute, the House of Representatives might override a Senatorial veto by passing the same bill a second time, in the parliamentary session immediately following the one in which it was rejected by the Senate, after a minimum period of six months.
Fiji has held 10 general elections for the House of Representatives since becoming independent of the United Kingdom in 1970; there had been numerous elections under colonial rule, but only one with universal suffrage. In this period, Fiji has had three constitutions, and the voting system has changed accordingly. Note that there are no general elections for the Senate: The 32 Senators are nominated, not elected.
Chapter 6: The Parliament.Chapter 6 of the Fiji Constitution is titled The Parliament. The five Parts, further subdivided into forty sections making up this chapter, set out the composition, functions, and powers of Fiji's bicameral legislature.
Tupeni Lebaivalu Baba is a Fijian academic and politician, who founded the now-defunct New Labour Unity Party. Most members of this party later merged with several other centrist parties to form the Fiji Democratic Party. A former Professor of Education at the University of the South Pacific (USP), he later served as a senior research fellow at the Centre for Pacific Studies at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, from 2001 to the end of 2005. In the general election scheduled for 6–13 May 2006, Baba attempted a political comeback, this time on the ticket of the ruling Soqosoqo Duavata ni Lewenivanua (SDL), a political switch that generated a considerable degree of public discussion. Although his bid was unsuccessful, he was subsequently appointed to the Senate as one of nine nominees of the Fijian government.
General elections were held in Fiji between 4 and 11 April 1987. It was historic in that it marked the first electoral transition of power in Fijian history. The Alliance Party (Fiji) of the longtime Prime Minister, Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, was defeated by a multiracial coalition, consisting of the Fiji Labour Party, the Indo-Fijian-dominated National Federation Party, and two smaller parties, the Western United Front and the Fiji Nationalist Party. In the House of Representatives, the coalition won a total of 28 seats to the Alliance's 24, and Dr Timoci Bavadra, the leader of the coalition, became Prime Minister.
General elections were held in Fiji between 23 and 30 May 1992. It was the first election held since two military coups in 1987 had severed Fiji's 113-year-old constitutional links with the British Monarchy, and later Fijian Monarchy, and ushered in a republic.
General elections were held in Fiji between 18 and 25 February 1994. This election, the second since Fiji had become a republic following two military coups in 1987, was brought about by splits within the ruling Soqosoqo ni Vakavulewa ni Taukei (SVT) and by the withdrawal of the support of the Fiji Labour Party, which claimed that Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka had reneged on a deal to review Fiji's electoral system, which was heavily weighted in favour of ethnic Fijians, despite their being nearly equal in number to Indo-Fijians.
The Constitution of Fiji was restored by a High Court decision on 15 November 2000, following the failure of the political upheaval in which the government had been deposed and the constitution suspended in May that year. On 1 March 2001, the Appeal Court upheld the decision. An election to restore democracy was held in September 2001. In what was one of Fiji's most bitterly fought elections ever, the newly formed Soqosoqo Duavata ni Lewenivanua of the interim Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase narrowly defeated the Fiji Labour Party of deposed former Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry.
"General Electors" is the term formerly used in Fiji to identify citizens of voting age who belonged, in most cases, to ethnic minorities. The 1997 Constitution defined General Electors as all Fiji citizens who were not registered as being of Fijian, Indian, or Rotuman descent. Also included were citizens who did qualify to be registered in the above categories, but who chose not to be. Persons of biracial or multiracial ancestry could opt to enroll either as General Electors, or as descendants of any of the other three groups to which they had an ancestral claim. General Electors were thus a diverse electorate, whose members included Europeans, Chinese, Banaban Islanders, and many smaller groups. They were allocated 3 seats in the House of Representatives, the lower and more influential house of the Fijian Parliament.
The Fijian Association Party (FAP) is a former political party in Fiji. It played a significant role in Fijian politics throughout the 1990s, but lost all of its seats in the House of Representatives in the parliamentary election of 2001.
The Fiji Democratic Party is a former political party in Fiji, which operated between June 2002 and April 2005.
Communal constituencies were the most durable feature of the Fijian electoral system. In communal constituencies, electors enrolled as ethnic Fijians, Indo-Fijians, Rotuman Islanders, or General electors vote for a candidate of their own respective ethnic groups, in constituencies that have been reserved by ethnicity. Other methods of choosing parliamentarians came and went, but this feature was a constant until their final abolition in the 2013 Constitution.
Open constituencies represent one of several electoral models employed in the past in the Fijian electoral system. They derived their name from the fact that they were "open": unlike the communal constituencies, the 25 members of the House of Representatives who represented open constituencies were elected by universal suffrage and were open to members of any ethnic group.
The Constitution of Fiji requires general elections for the House of Representatives to be held at least once every five years. The last election before Fiji's 2014 election was held on 6–13 May 2006. Acting President Ratu Joni Madraiwiwi issued a proclamation on 2 March, effective from 27 March, dissolving Parliament. The previous parliamentary term had been due to expire on 1 October 2006.
The People's Coalition was an alliance of three political parties in Fiji, formed in March 1999 to contest the parliamentary election to be held in May that year. The three parties were the Fiji Labour Party (FLP), led by Mahendra Chaudhry, the Fijian Association Party (FAP), led by Adi Kuini Speed, and the Party of National Unity (PANU), led by Apisai Tora.
