Immediately after Fiji was ceded to the United Kingdom, on 10 October 1874, the first Governor, Sir Hercules Robinson, established an Executive Council with himself as President and comprising six other Europeans.
Ever since its inception in Fiji, Executive Council members were all Europeans, until Ratu Sukuna, an ethnic Fijian, was appointed in 1943.
[1] A committee formed in 1948 proposed that the five unofficial representatives of each racial group be empowered to select one of their own numbers to be a member of the Executive Council.
A. D. Patel managed to outmaneuver Vishnu Deo for this position which made bitter enemies of these former political allies.
On 1 July 1964, a membership system of Government was installed with the composition of the Executive Council modified to allocate a majority of the seats to unofficial members.