KEY POINTS:
A team headed by New Zealander Paul Harris has begun work to assess whether democratic elections can be held in Fiji within two years.
The four-member team has been commissioned by the Pacific Islands Forum to see if the three-year timetable set by Fiji's interim Government for elections can be shortened.
The last elected government was ousted in a December military coup.
Mr Harris is a former chief executive of the Electoral Commission in New Zealand and his team is expected to report back next month.
Fiji's Finance Minister, Mahendra Chaudry, said last week that although there was pressure from the international community for elections to be held within 18 months to two years, lengthy electoral procedures had to be completed first.
A population census has to be carried out, beginning in July, and provisional electoral boundaries drawn up.
The Indian Government is expected to provide electronic voting machines for the next election but Semesa Karavaki, recently sacked as Fiji's supervisor of elections, said the machines would only complicate matters for voters.
Electronic voting would ensure the validity of votes and reduce the time taken to declare the successful candidate, but there would have to be a major educational exercise in their use.
"We should just make use of the current system. We don't need such machines to complicate matters," he said, adding the interim Government was trying to delay the elections by introducing a new system of voting.
A meeting of donor countries to the Pacific held in Washington this month underlined its support for the forum's call for democratic elections within 18 to 24 months, if not sooner.
The countries, which included the United States, New Zealand, Australia, France and Germany, expressed support for the regional efforts being co-ordinated by the forum to help Fiji return to democracy.
"A number of core partners noted their willingness to offer assistance to support the rapid restoration of democracy in Fiji, including for new elections," they said.
The meeting was held in tandem with the Pacific Islands Conference of Leaders triennial meeting and caused an upset because the political situation in Fiji, the Solomon Islands and Tonga was discussed by donor countries.
- NZPA
