The Fiji Labour Party, also known as Fiji Labour, is a political party in Fiji. Most of its support is from the Indo-Fijian community, although it is officially multiracial and its first leader was an indigenous Fijian, Dr. Timoci Bavadra. The party has been elected to power twice, with Timoci Bavadra and Mahendra Chaudhry becoming prime minister in 1987 and 1999 respectively. On both occasions, the resulting government was rapidly overthrown by a coup.
The United Fiji Party was a political party in Fiji. It was founded in 2001 by Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase as a power base; it absorbed most of the Christian Democratic Alliance and other conservative groups, and its endorsement by the Great Council of Chiefs (Bose Levu Vakaturaga) caused it to be widely seen as the successor to the Alliance Party, the former ruling party that had dominated Fijian politics from the 1960s to the 1980s. It drew its support mainly from indigenous Fijiians.
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.
Siddiq Moidin Koya was a Fijian Indian politician, Statesman and Opposition leader. He succeeded to the leadership of the mostly Indo-Fijian National Federation Party (NFP) on the death of the party's founder, A. D. Patel, in October 1969, remaining in this post until 1977. He later served a second term as leader of the NFP, from 1984 to 1987.
Since becoming independent of the United Kingdom in 1970, Fiji has had four constitutions, and the voting system has changed accordingly.
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.
General elections were held in Fiji between 8 and 15 May 1999. They were the first election held under the revised Constitution of 1997, which instituted a new electoral system and resulted in Mahendra Chaudhry taking office as Fiji's first Indo-Fijian Prime Minister, following a landslide victory for the Fiji Labour Party. It was also a wipeout loss for the incumbent Soqosoqo ni Vakavulewa ni Taukei (SVT) government of Sitiveni Rabuka, which lost all but eight seats and won less seats than the Fijian Association Party (FAP).
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 claims to represent all Fiji Islanders, it is supported, in practice, almost exclusively by Indo-Fijians whose ancestors had come to Fiji between 1879 and 1916, mostly as indentured labourers. However, in the 2018 general election, the party recorded a considerable change in its support base due to the inclusion of more indigenous Fijian candidates.
"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.
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.
National constituencies were 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.
General elections were held in Fiji between 6 and 13 May 2006.
Fiji was an independent state from 1970 to 1987, a Commonwealth realm in which the British monarch, Elizabeth II, remained head of state as Queen of Fiji, represented by the Governor-General. The state was the successor of the British Colony of Fiji which was given independence in October 1970 and it survived until the Republic of Fiji was proclaimed on 6 October 1987 after two military coups, at which time Queen Elizabeth II was removed as head of state, albeit, without any consent from the people of Fiji themselves.
Ba Open is a former electoral division of Fiji, one of 25 open constituencies that were elected by universal suffrage. Established by the 1997 Constitution, it came into being in 1999 and was used for the parliamentary elections of 1999, 2001, and 2006. The population was predominantly Indo-Fijian and the electorate was a stronghold of the Fiji Labour Party (FLP) throughout its history.
North Eastern General Communal is a former electoral division of Fiji, one of 3 communal constituencies reserved for General Electors, an omnibus category including Caucasians, Chinese, and all others whose ethnicity was neither indigenous Fijian nor Indo-Fijian. Established by the 1997 Constitution, it came into being in 1999 and was used for the parliamentary elections of 1999, 2001, and 2006..
Suva City General Communal is a former electoral division of Fiji, one of 3 communal constituencies reserved for General Electors, an omnibus category including Caucasians, Chinese, and all others whose ethnicity was neither indigenous Fijian nor Indo-Fijian. Established by the 1997 Constitution, it came into being in 1999 and was used for the parliamentary elections of 1999, 2001, and 2006..
West Central General Communal is a former electoral division of Fiji, one of 3 communal constituencies reserved for General Electors, an omnibus category including Caucasians, Chinese, and all others whose ethnicity was neither indigenous Fijian nor Indo-Fijian. Established by the 1997 Constitution, it came into being in 1999 and was used for the parliamentary elections of 1999, 2001, and 2006..
The Federation Party was Fiji's first formal political party. The Citizens Federation, which had won three of the four seats reserved for Indo-Fijians at the 1963 elections, decided to formalize its role as a political party, which was officially founded on 21 June 1964 with A. D. Patel as President and Sidiq Koya as Vice-President. The merger took place in time for the party to participate in the 1965 constitutional conference which was called to map out a path towards independence from the United Kingdom. In 1968, the Federation Party merged with the National Democratic Party to form the National Federation Party, which is now (2021) the oldest political party in Fiji still in existence.
Sir John Neil Falvey, KBE, QC was a New Zealand-born Fijian lawyer, who served as Attorney General of Fiji from 1970 to 1977. Previously, he had served as legal adviser to the Fijian Affairs Board.
