Dialogue Fiji Executive Director says lower vote candidates elected over high vote candidates is a myth

It's unfair when lower vote candidates are elected over the high voted candidates is a myth.

Executive Director of Dialogue Fiji, Nilesh Lal highlighted this during Dialogue Fiji Multi-Stakeholder Dialogue on Electoral Reform at Holiday Inn this morning.

Lal says the fact is that in the Open List Proportional System, the votes are distributed based on party vote totals and then ranked by individuals votes within the parties.

The Executive Director says another myth is that the previous electoral system was more fair than the current system.

Lal says a popular leader brings in votes that benefit the party list, it's not undemocratic - it's proportional.

The Executive Director further says it is a myth that the current voting system has caused low female representation.

Lal says that the highest women representation Fiji ever had was after the 2018 general election and he believes that this system actually favours women.

He says that another claim is that electoral system gives too much power to the Prime Minister and the Attorney General.

Lal says that power concentration is due to party constitutions and leadership dynamics, not the electoral system. Meanwhile Unity Fiji Leader, Savenaca Narube also highlighted in the conference that the current electoral system is so unfair that even after he was the person with the 6th highest votes in the 2022 general elections, he is not in parliament and this means that 49 Members of Parliament have lower votes than he had.

He stresses that we need to have much better distribution of seats based on the votes that the candidates get.

Questions are also being raised on whether the Supreme Court should interpret Section 53 of the 2013 Constitution which states that the election of Members of Parliament is by a multi-member open list system of proportional representation, under which each voter has one vote, with each vote being of equal value, in a single national electoral roll comprising all the registered voters.

Narube says the government should make an application to the Supreme Court to get a clear interpretation on this.