Fiji elections: The results are in - Fiji to get a coalition government

The Fiji Elections Office national count centre in the capital Suva. Photo / Fiji Elections Office

The final results of the 2022 Fiji election are in.

The make-up of the new 55-seat parliament - according to the Fiji Elections Office results app - will be Fiji First with 26 seats, The People’s Alliance Party with 21 seats, The National Federation Party with five seats and The Social Democratic Liberal Party with three seats.

In order to be able to form government 28 seats are needed.

This means that for the first time since the return of democracy to Fiji in 2014, Frank Bainimarama’s dominant Fiji First Party has failed to secure the majority of seats to rule alone in parliament.

Fiji opposition party leaders Savenaca Narube (UFP) (left), Sitiveni Rabuka (PAP), Biman Prasad (NFP) and Mahendra Chaudhry (FLP). Photo / Kelvin Anthony, RNZ Pacific

Bainimarama will now need to woo at least one of the three opposition party leaders to join him if he is to remain in power.

The People’s Alliance Party - led by Sitiveni Rabuka - and the National Federation Party - led by Biman Prasad - formed a pre-election coalition and are unlikely targets for the Fiji First leader.

But Sodelpa, led by Viliame Gavoka, made no such pre-election promises.

Gavoka also has close family ties to Bainimarama’s right-hand man and attorney general Aiyaz-Sayed Khaiyum.

There is also bad blood between Sodelpa and Rabuka, who broke away from the party to form his current People’s Alliance Party, after having led Sodelpa through the last election in 2018.

Supervisor of elections Mohammed Saneem said the official elections results will be handed over to the electoral commission later this afternoon.