People's National Party (Fiji) - Background To The Merger

Background To The Merger

On 24 June 2005, Bogileka announced that the party would concentrate on communal constituencies reserved for ethnic Fijians. (Under Fiji's complex electoral system, 46 of the 71 seats in the House of Representatives are reserved for voters registered on closed ethnic roles; 23 are allocated to indigenous Fijians). The party was open to contesting other seats also, Bogileka said, but considered it important to prioritize. He said the party wanted to negotiate electoral alliances with other ethnic Fijian parties to secure vote-transfer agreements under Fiji's instant-runoff voting system, and on 13 August it signed Memorandum of Understanding with five other parties, confirming an agreement made on 31 July, to contest the general election scheduled for 2006 as part of a coalition.

Before its merger into PANU, the party planned to contest the Fijian communal constituencies of Serua, Nadroga Navosa, North West Urban, Bua, Ra, Ba West and Ba West, and the open electorates of Navosa, Nadroga, and Tavua, according to Bogileka. The so-called Open electorates, unlike the communal constituencies, are elected by universal suffrage.