Kenneth Zinck - Elections of 1999 and 2001

Elections of 1999 and 2001

An earlier foray into politics was in the general election of 1999, when he contested the Suva City Open constituency as a candidate of the Fiji Labour Party. He received 29.8 percent of the vote on the first count, some two percentage points behind the United General Party (UGP) candidate Ofa Duncan (now Ofa Swann); when votes for minor candidates had been redistributed under Fiji's transferable voting system, he was more than ten percentage points behind Duncan. His second attempt, in the 2001 election, was successful. In the meantime, a coup d'état had deposed the elected government in 2000 and some major political realignments had taken place. Now a member of the New Labour Unity Party (NLUP), he contested the Suva City General Electors Communal constituency, one of three reserved for ethnic minorities. Zinck won almost 33 percent of the vote on the first count, and went on to defeat Kenneth Mang-Kwong Low of the United Fiji Party (SDL) with more than 60 percent, after preferences had been distributed. He was one of only two NLUP candidates to be elected, the other being Duncan, who had defected from the UGP.

The election produced an inconclusive result; the United Fiji Party (SDL) of Laisenia Qarase emerged as the largest single party, with 32 of the 71 seats, short of an overall majority in the House of Representatives. Qarase cobbled together a coalition with a number of smaller parties and independents. Zinck defied the NLUP leadership by accepting a Cabinet post, and after repeated refusals to resign, he was expelled from the party on 4 December 2003. He is still officially listed as an NLUP parliamentarian, however, even though the party was deregistered in 2005.