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| Sunday, 7 May 2006 |
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Polls open in Fiji at start of week-long election May 6, 2006 (AFP) Polls opened Saturday morning in Fiji at the start of a week-long parliamentary election pitting the indigenous nationalist government against an ethnic Indian-dominated opposition in the coup-prone South Pacific republic. Nearly 500,000 voters spread over 100 islands lying about 2,000 kilometres (1,250 miles) north of New Zealand are registered to vote in the election. Opposition leader Mahendra Chaudhry, who was the first ethnic Indian prime minister of the island nation of 900,000 when he was deposed in a racially inspired coup in 2000, said Friday he was confident of victory for his Fijian Labour Party. Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase, first appointed in 2000 in the wake of the coup, said he expected to win a close race. Qarase has said Fiji was not ready to accept an Indo-Fijian prime minister. The start of voting was delayed in the centre of the capital Suva in an embarrassing glitch. With the heads of foreign observer teams from the European Union, the Commonwealth and the Pacific Islands Forum looking on, officials announced that some of the voting papers had not arrived. Fiji has a complex preferential voting system and the voters will choose representatives of their own racial group in 46 communal seats as well as MPs for 25 seats open to all racial groups.
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