A Technical Assessment of the Fiji Electoral Law Reform Commission’s Proposed Electoral System

This technical assessment critically examines the Fiji Electoral Law Reform Commission’s proposed Proportional Open List Constituency System. It argues that the model is mathematically incomplete and cannot reliably guarantee national proportionality because 50 of 71 seats would be decided through first-past-the-post contests before only 21 compensatory seats are allocated. The publication also assesses the proposed national party vote, the “best losers” mechanism, constituency boundaries, local representation, women’s representation, minority protection, small-party and independent participation, vote equality, counting arrangements and the comparative performance of Fiji’s current national open-list proportional representation system. It concludes that the proposed model is predominantly a first-past-the-post system with an insufficient and fragile correction mechanism.