The deregistration of FijiFirst (FFP) is predicted to provide Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka with many strategic opportunities, according to Jioji Kotobalavu, a former permanent secretary in the Prime Minister’s Office. Despite expressing sorrow for the FFP and its founders, Kotobalavu believes Rabuka will transform the party’s decline into an advantage.
Independent candidacies have been historically unsuccessful in Fiji’s general elections, as noted by Kotobalavu. This is in large part due to the constitutional requirement that political parties or individual candidates must achieve at least 5% of all valid votes cast to share in Parliament’s post-election seat allocation. In recent years, this threshold has hindered even prominent parties such as Fiji Labour Party and Unity Fiji.
In such a context, the members of the recently deregistered FFP might join one of the three existing parties in the People’s Coalition Government in order to retain their parliamentary seats. Among these parties, Sitiveni Rabuka, the leader of the People’s Alliance party, is considered the most charismatic, and therefore, most likely to draw votes.
In the 2022 General Election, Rabuka’s leadership garnered nearly 80,000 votes, providing his party with the majority of its current 21 parliamentary seats. The Prime Minister’s ability to execute his constitutional powers robustly has been somewhat limited by the fragile majority held by the People’s Coalition Government. This contingent political environment could result in Rabuka welcoming former FFP members into his People’s Alliance party.