Page 10 - IB April 2025

Politics Politics

Ticking the box ... police secure a ballot box during the 2014 Fiji election. Photo: Netani Rika/Invictus Pictures

SUBJECT TO CHANGE

OPTIONS FOR FIJI ELECTORAL REFORM

By Jon Fraenkel members of Parliament is by a multi-member open list system
of proportional representation, under which each voter has
Many senior politicians in Fiji believe that the country’s one vote, with each vote being of equal value, in a single
electoral system cannot be changed without simultaneously national electoral roll comprising all the registered voters’
amending the 2013 Constitution. If accurate, that would be (2013 Constitution S. 53 (1)).
a major dilemma because amending the 2013 Constitution But a ‘single national electoral roll’ does not mean ‘a
requires not only the support of 75% of MPs but also 75% of single national constituency’. It is a reference to an electoral
all registered voters in a referendum. Fortunately, it is not register that uses a ‘common roll’, one that departs from
correct. It is based on a misconception. There is scope for the pre-2006 coup practice of using communal rolls in which
some significant changes in Fiji’s electoral law by an ordinary ethnic Fijians, Fiji Indians, General Voters, and Rotumans
act of parliament that would remedy at least some of the voted separately. Prior to the deliberations on the 2013
major defects of the present system. Constitution, then-military commander and Prime Minister,
The reason so many in Fiji have misinterpreted the law Frank Bainimarama set out a list of ‘non-negotiable’ provisions
and concluded that the electoral system is cast in stone for the new constitution that included the ‘elimination of
is because of a misreading of the 2013 Constitution and ethnic voting’, by which he meant ditching of the old racially
because of unfamiliarity with the many other types of open reserved ethnic rolls. These communal rolls were initially
list proportional system that exist elsewhere in the world. introduced under British colonial rule in the late 1920s.
The Fiji 2013 Constitution does, for better or worse, require It is perfectly possible to have a ‘single national electoral
the retention of the ‘multi-member open list system of roll’ with multiple constituencies. Nearly all countries which
proportional representation’. use open list proportional representation do not have one
Fiji’s Electoral Commission, as well as the Multinational district for the entire nation. The only countries that use
Observer Reports on the 2014, 2018 and 2022 elections, have open list systems in single nationwide districts are Holland,
all stated that the 2013 Constitution requires that system to Kosovo, San Marino, and the Slovak Republic. Holland opted
be operated in a single national constituency. This is wrong. for a single nationwide district in 1917 because political
What that Constitution actually says is that ‘the election of leaders at that time wanted a highly proportional system,

10 Islands Business, April 2025