Initial Electoral Success
FLP faced its first electoral test in municipal elections held three months later, when it won control of the Suva City Council and its candidate, Bob Kumar was elected Lord Mayor. It also won seats on the Labasa, Nadi, and Ba Town Councils, and subsequently secured a seat on the Lautoka City Council at a by-election.
FLP's main test as a national political force came during the by-election for the North Central Indian National Seat in December 1985, following the resignation of Vijay R. Singh. FLP decised to field Mahendra Chaudhry, who was also the general secretary of the National Farmers Union as its candidate. The NFP candidate was former Alliance Minister, James Shankar Singh and the Alliance candidate was Uday Singh. Whereas, both the Alliance and NFP again used race as an issue, Labour campaigned on policies. The result of the election was: Uday Singh, 7848 votes; Mahendra Chaudhry, 7644 votes and James Shankar Singh 5003 votes. Despite Chaudhry's narrow loss, Labour was considered to have done well.
In June 1986, NFP-elected MP, Satendra Nandan joined the FLP. One month later, he was joined by Davendra Singh, of the NFP Youth Wing, who had defeated the official NFP candidate in an earlier by-election and Jay Raj Singh, another NFP-elected MP.
Read more about this topic: Fiji Labour Party
Famous quotes containing the words initial, electoral and/or success:
“No punishment has ever possessed enough power of deterrence to prevent the commission of crimes. On the contrary, whatever the punishment, once a specific crime has appeared for the first time, its reappearance is more likely than its initial emergence could ever have been.”
—Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)
“Power is action; the electoral principle is discussion. No political action is possible when discussion is permanently established.”
—Honoré De Balzac (1799–1850)
“All of the valuable qualities ... like helping in the development of others—will not get you to the top at General Motors, were that path open to women.... The characteristics most highly developed in women and perhaps most essential to human beings are the very characteristics that are specifically dysfunctional for success in the world as it is.... They may, however, be the important ones for making the world different.”
—Jean Baker Miller (20th century)