Page "Constitution of Fiji: Chapter 2" Paragraph 7

* Every Fiji citizen is guaranteed the right to form or join a political party, to participate in electoral campaigns, and to vote and hold political office.

Elections to the House of Representatives are to be free, fair, by secret ballot, and ultimately on the basis of equal suffrage.

This was to redress the grievances of the Indo-Fijian community that under the previous constitution ( adopted in 1990 ), the allocation of specific numbers of seats to particular ethnic communities had greatly overrepresented ethnic Fijians, at their expense.