ALDEN WILLIAMS/Stuff
Distinguished Professor from the University of Canterbury Dr Steven Ratuva says it will be interesting to see what the final results are in Fiji’s General Elections.
Fiji’s government for the next four years is down to a kingmaker, after final results from its general elections left no party with a clear majority.
The battle is between Frank Bainimarama’ Fiji First Party (FFP) and coalition between People’s Alliance and National Federation parties (PAP-NFP), who both finished with 26 seats each after the final count on Sunday.
FFP finished with 42.5% of votes, while PAP-NFP’s combined votes came to 44.7%.
A party can form a government if they win 28 or more seats in Fiji’s 52-member parliament.
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The kingmaker that wields the power to Fiji’s future lays in the hands of the Social Democratic Party (SODELPA), who gained three seats with their 5.1% of votes.
University of Canterbury political sociologist Dr Steven Ratuva said both FFP and PAP-NFP had been negotiating with SODELPA since Saturday night for a coalition.
He said a possible Fiji First and SODELPA coalition was unlikely to happen.
“It’s going to be very interesting, but it’s highly likely that SODELPA will join the other coalition. It’s still early days.
“Last night the leading parties were all trying to do their horse training with SODELPA, and it appears that there might be a grand coalition, which means Bainimarama’s party will have to be in the Opposition in the next government.”
SODELPA general secretary Lenaitasi Duru said they were on the second round of negotiations with both parties on Sunday.
Bainimarama, who overthrew the government with a coup in 2006, has been in power for the last 16 years.
Ratuva said they’ve configured the political system to where they wanted it.
“And this is in terms of security, economic development, judiciary, civil servant, education and a lot of things.
“These are part of grievances, in terms how some of those exchanges have inconvenienced a large majority of people in Fiji. These election results are seeing those grievances come out.
“People want change and this election is transformational, people are trying to put the past behind them and are look forward to something better in the future.”
Read More: No clear winner as Fiji Elections ends in hung parliament, down to kingmaker