Fiji's electoral system is the result of complex negotiations, compromises, and experiments conducted over the years leading up to and following independence from British colonial rule in 1970.
A number of devices have been tried at various times to accommodate the reality that the primary faultline in Fijian politics is not ideological, but ethnic.
In colonial times, the British authorities established a legislative council with mostly advisory powers, which were gradually extended.
From the early 1960s onwards, the Indo-Fijian dominated National Federation Party began campaigning for universal franchise on a common voters' roll.
Leaders of the indigenous Fijian community objected to this proposal, fearful that it would grant effective political control to Indo-Fijians, who then comprised a majority of the country's population.
Candidates who receive a minimum of 50 percent of the total vote in their respective constituencies are declared elected.
Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase of the SDL has admitted that his party won a number of seats on NFP preferences, as transferred votes are known.
Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase added his own voice to the dissent on 21 December 2005, saying that the system might be too complicated for the average voter to understand.
Minority representation was reduced from 1972 onwards (3 out of 27 communal constituencies); indigenous Fijians and Indo-Fijians continued to be represented equally (12 seats each).
25 Open constituencies were established, with candidates of all races competing for votes cast on a common voters' roll.
The chiefs continued to nominate two members to the Legislative Council after 1966, but chiefly representation was abolished in the first post-independence election of 1972.
Then-interim leader Commodore Frank Bainimarama, who overthrew the government of Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase in a military coup in December 2006, has blamed Fiji's "communal voting" system for ethnic tensions and a lack of a strong feeling of shared national identity and citizenship.
Qarase said he supported the idea in principle, but added: "[W]e are a very young democracy and I think if we move now to one man, one vote system it will be far too fast and far too early.
The 51 members of Parliament were elected from a single nationwide constituency by open list proportional representation with an electoral threshold of 5%.