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National constituencies are a former feature of the Fijian electoral system. They were created as a compromise between demands for universal suffrage on a common voters' roll, and for a strictly communal franchise, with Parliamentary constituencies allocated on an ethnic basis and elected only by voters enrolled as members of specific ethnic groups.
The concept of universal suffrage, also known as general suffrage or common suffrage, consists of the right to vote of all adult citizens, regardless of property ownership, income, race, or ethnicity, subject only to minor exceptions. In its original 19th-century usage by political reformers, universal suffrage was understood to mean only universal manhood suffrage; the vote was extended to women later, during the women's suffrage movement.
The Parliament of the Republic Fiji is the unicameral legislature of the Republic of Fiji. It consists of 51 members elected every 4 years using open-list proportional representation in one multi-member nationwide constituency.
Demands for a common voters' roll were first raised by the Indo-Fijian-dominated National Federation Party in the early 1960s, but were resisted by leaders of the indigenous Fijian community, who feared that a common roll would favour Indo-Fijians, who were then in the majority. Concerns were also raised that as the fundamental faultline of Fijian politics was ethnic rather than ideological, direct competition between the races could lead to an escalation of ethnic tensions. As a compromise, the British colonial rulers established both communal constituencies (allocated and elected ethnically) and "cross-voting" constituencies in 1966. 25 members of the Legislative Council were elected from communal constituencies and 9 from cross-voting constituencies; the remaining 2 were nominated by the Great Council of Chiefs.
The National Federation Party is a Fijian political party founded by A.D. Patel in November 1968, as a merger of the Federation Party and the National Democratic Party. Though it claimed to represent all Fiji Islanders, it was supported, in practice, almost exclusively by Indo-Fijians whose ancestors had come to Fiji, mostly as indentured labourers, between 1879 and 1916.
Fijians are a nation and ethnic group native to Fiji, who speak Fijian and share a common history and culture.
The cross-voting constituencies, which were later renamed national constituencies, were allocated ethnically but elected by universal suffrage. In the 1966 election, the first in which all adults had voted and the last before independence was granted in 1970, indigenous Fijians, Indo-Fijians, and minority groups (Europeans, Chinese, and others) were each allocated 3 cross-voting constituencies. Each elector thus had four votes: one for a communal constituency, and one for a national constituency for each of the three population groups. This required politicians to seek support from outside of their own ethnic group, without directly competing with candidates from other races.
"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 Han Chinese, Hanzu, Han people, are an East Asian ethnic group and nation native to China. They constitute the world's largest ethnic group, making up about 18% of the global population. The estimated 1.3 billion Han Chinese people are mostly concentrated in mainland China and in Taiwan. Han Chinese people also make up three quarters of the total population of Singapore.
Continued demands from the National Federation Party for a common franchise threatened to stall negotiations leading to independence. At a London conference in April 1970, however, the Chief Minister, Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara of the mainly indigenous Alliance Party and Opposition Leader Sidiq Koya of the NFP agreed to a compromise: a 52-member House of Representatives would be established, with 27 communal and 25 national constituencies. Of the national constituencies, indigenous Fijians and Indo-Fijians would each be allocated 10, and minority groups 5. Each voter had four votes: one for 'his' communal constituency and three for the national constituencies. Two maps overlapped each other: one in which Fiji was divided in ten constituencies electing one indigenous Fijian and one indo-Fijian each and one in which Fiji was divided in five constituencies for the election of 'general electors'. This arrangement remained in effect through five general elections, held between 1972 and 1987. As Fiji Islanders tended to vote along ethnic lines, the communal constituencies followed predictable patterns, with the national constituencies providing the real arena for competition.
Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, CF, GCMG, KBE is considered the founding father of the modern nation of Fiji. He was Chief Minister from 1967 to 1970, when Fiji gained its independence from the United Kingdom, and, apart from one brief interruption in 1987, the first Prime Minister from 1970 to 1992. He subsequently served as president from 1993 to 2000.
The Alliance Party, was the ruling political party in Fiji from 1966 to 1987. Founded in the early 1960s, its leader was Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, the founding father of the modern Fijian nation. Widely seen as the political vehicle of the traditional Fijian chiefs, the Alliance Party also commanded considerable support among the Europeans and other ethnic minorities, who, although comprising only 3–4% of Fiji's population, were over represented in the parliament. Indo-Fijians were less supportive, but the Fijian-European block vote kept the Alliance Party in power for more than twenty years.
The post of Leader of the Opposition is a political office common in countries that are part of the Commonwealth of Nations. It did not originate in Fiji but has a long tradition; in British constitutional theory, the Leader of the Opposition must pose a formal alternative to the government, ready to form a government himself should the Prime Minister lose the confidence of the Parliament.
National constituencies were abolished in the wake of the Fiji coups of 1987. Fijian ethno-nationalists, who seized power, insisted on their abolition on the grounds that they allowed non-indigenous Fijians a say in who represented indigenous voters; in the revised constitution, all parliamentary seats were allocated and elected communally. When the constitution was revised again in 1997, the constitutional convention decided not to reinstate the national constituencies, but to substitute open constituencies whose electors and candidates could be of any ethnic group.
The Fijian coups of 1987 resulted in the overthrow of the elected government of Fijian Prime Minister Timoci Bavadra, the deposition of Elizabeth II as Queen of Fiji, and in the declaration of a republic. The first coup, in which Bavadra was deposed, took place on 14 May 1987; a second coup on 28 September ended the monarchy, and was shortly followed by the proclamation of a republic on 7 October. Both military actions were led by Lieutenant Colonel Sitiveni Rabuka, then third in command of the Royal Fiji Military Forces. Depending on perspective, one may view the event either as two successive coups d'état separated by a four-month intermission, or as a single coup begun on 14 May and completed with the declaration of the republic.
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.
