In Their Own Words: Fiji, May 2000
Three voices from May 2000. Teaiwa and Lal wrote in real time as Speight held Parliament. Chaudhry spoke on 17 May, two days before it happened. Twenty-six years on, none of it has aged out.
What the Vuvale Union Treaty Doesn't Say
The Vuvale Union Treaty assessed against Fiji's Constitution. Five critical gaps. Parliamentary authority, judicial ouster, and defence sovereignty.
Electon Watch: Part 3 of 5
FijiFirst won 42.5% of the vote in 2022, secured 26 seats, and was deregistered. Two former Deputy PMs now face corruption trials during the campaign. The opposition has the opening. Part 3 examines whether it has the organisation to use it.
Budget 2026–2027: What the Numbers Say
Fiji's 2026–2027 Budget has been delivered. Here's what the numbers actually say.
Before the Budget: What to Watch in Fiji’s 2026–2027 National Budget
The 2026–2027 budget lands inside Fiji's election window. Here's what the numbers will actually tell you.
Esrom Yosef Immanuel
Minister for Finance. People's Alliance. Sworn in October 2025 after Biman Prasad resigned on FICAC charges. His first budget as Minister is due 26 June 2026. The numbers are stable. The room to move is not.
What the Republic Requires and Deserves
A republic is the most demanding form of government. It requires its citizens and its rulers to want something beyond their own immediate interest. FPR examines what that means for Fiji right now.
Election Watch: Part 2 of 5
One vote in December 2022 ended sixteen years of Bainimarama. Three years on, that coalition is heading into a campaign where each party's interest in votes competes directly with their collective interest in governing. The fault lines are showing.
Election Watch: Part 1 of 5
The writ window opens 24 June. Rabuka can call the election any day from here — but timing is strategy. This analysis maps the factors pulling him toward an early poll and those pushing him to wait, the three scenarios in play, and what the date he picks will tell us about where he thinks he stands.
Election Watch 2026
Fiji goes to the polls between August 2026 and February 2027. This briefing tracks the electoral timeline, explains how the system works, maps 20 red flags drawn from Fiji's political history and international monitoring standards, and flags what to watch before the writ drops.
Mapping Fiji's Drug Trade: An Interactive Network
Who connects to whom, where the money goes and where the system breaks down. A timeline tells you what happened and when, but a network map tells you how it works. FPR has built an interactive constellation of Fiji's documented drug trade, 35 entities, 87 connections, every node
Viliame Gavoka
Deputy Prime Minister. Minister for Tourism and Civil Aviation. SODELPA's kingmaker in 2022. One million visitors. $2.54 billion. A profile of the coalition's most senior SODELPA figure.
FPR Podcast Launch: On the Record & Pacific Dispatch
FPR launches two new audio formats: On the Record, our interview podcast, and Pacific Dispatch, our audio essay series. Episode 1 of each is out now on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
Fiji Drug Intelligence Tracker
A documented chronology of drug seizures, trafficking operations, and institutional integrity events in Fiji and the Pacific, 2000 to present. Every entry is sourced. Unverified entries are flagged. The tracker covers 23 events across six categories, from Operation Logrunner's 357 kg heroin warehouse in 2000 to the January
The Drug Trade as Governance Failure: Why Maritime Fiji Bears the Cost of State Absence
The persistence of the drug trade in Fiji is not primarily a consequence of weak policing. Rather, it reflects the absence of sustained state presence; at sea, within village governance, and in fiscal priorities. Transnational traffickers have been quick to identify and exploit these gaps. Fiji’s maritime communities span
The Constitutional Monitor: Tracking How Fiji Is Actually Governed
Pacific democracy scholarship has leaned on constitutions, election results, and historical narrative. Very little tracks what institutions actually do over time. The Monitor is our attempt to close that gap.
Policy Watch: The Vuda Incinerator Is Rejected
The Ministry of Environment and Climate Change said no. After a 1,500-page EIA, submissions and petitions, TNG Fiji's proposed 900,000-tonne waste-to-energy plant at Vuda has been rejected. TNG has until 3 July to appeal.
When the Quad Comes Calling: Multilateral Architecture and Fiji’s Embedded Alignment
On 25 May, the Vuvale union appeared on the Fiji Parliament's order paper. The next day, the Quad named Fiji pilot for its first joint infrastructure project. The timing was coincidental; the architecture it exposed was not. They reveal how Fiji's strategic position is being shaped, and by whom.
Policy Watch: The Referendum Budget Without a Framework
The government has allocated funds for a referendum without a legal framework. The Finance Minister confirms the budget is in place. The Supervisor of Elections confirms she cannot act on it.
From the Hospital at Lyon: Ratu Sir Lala Sukuna
In 1914, the British Army refused him. So he crossed the Channel and joined the French Foreign Legion instead.
Ro Filipe Tuisawau
Minister for Public Works, Transport & Meteorological Services. Deputy Leader, People's Alliance. His portfolio received the largest single budget allocation in 2025–26 — $800 million. A profile of one of the coalition's most senior figures.
Election Watch: Fiji's Missing Municipal Elections
Fiji's municipal councils have been run by government appointees for 21 years. No elections. No accountability to residents. FPR examines what that costs, and what it would take to change it.
Such period as the Minister may consider necessary
FPR's legal analysis of the instruments governing Fiji's local government election timeline. Finding: no instrument gives Parliament, the FEO, or civil society any formal role. The Minister decides alone.
Fiji’s Constitutional Crossroads: Indigenous Identity, Democratic Governance, and the Pursuit of National Equilibrium
Fiji's constitutional challenge is not a choice between indigenous identity and democratic equality. The question is whether its institutions can protect both at once.
Across the Kala Pani, Against the Silence
Fiji's 147th Girmit commemoration smoothed indenture into a palatable migration story. The antidote lies in the work of Professor Brij Lal, a historian who insisted on truth before comfort, and paid for it with exile.
Election Watch: The September Question
Whether Fiji's first local government elections in twenty-one years will proceed in September may be the most consequential democratic question the coalition faces this year.
Parliamentary Watch: The Vuvale Union and the Parliament That Has not Seen It
Cabinet has approved the Vuvale Union. Parliament has not. Under section 51 of the 2013 Constitution, that is a constitutional problem.
Australia's Budget Is Kind Words and Contingency Reserves
Fiji's bilateral aid allocation is frozen at $64 million while Australia announces a new era in the relationship. The numbers tell a different story to the rhetoric.
Vuvale Development and the Caution of a Dependency Culture: Why Hard Work and Strategic Planning Matter More in the Pacific
Is Fiji building genuine self-reliance — or deepening dependency? Associate Professor Andrew Levula calls for strategic investment in human capital and a return to Pacific values of discipline and preparation.
Election Watch: Seven Weeks to the Earliest Possible Writ Day
Fiji's 2026 election could be called as early as August — or as late as February 2027. The government has not announced when. What it decides will reveal whether constitutional reform comes before or after the polls.
Introducing the FPR Constitutional Reference
An independent annotated reference to the 2013 Constitution — plain language explanations, FPR analysis, and CRC Watch notes. Free and publicly accessible.
Parliamentary Watch: Fiji Ratifies the Pacific Resilience Facility — Unanimously
Fiji's Parliament unanimously ratified the Pacific Resilience Facility on 29 April — the first significant cross-party vote of the current term. Three observations on what it means, including the $333 million gap between current pledges and the PRF's capitalisation target.
CRC Watch: Four months to Report — What the Commission Must Address
Fiji's Constitutional Review Commission has four months to deliver its final report. Three questions the Fiji Political Review will be tracking.
How Did We Get Here? The Vuda Incinerator and the Governance Questions Nobody Is Asking
A FJD $1.4 billion waste-to-energy facility proposed for sacred iTaukei land at Vuda Point reached formal EIA stage without secured land consent, without addressing its Australian rejection history, and without a Waigani Convention compliance analysis. The Fiji Political Review asks how.
The Real Waste Is Not Consultation. It is secrecy.
Why the 2026 CRC must demand the FELRC report — and why the government must release it.
Fiji's National Referendum Bill: what it says, what it restricts, and why it matters
A plain-language breakdown of Bill No. 46 of 2025 — the legislation that will govern how Fijians vote on constitutional change, and why civil society, lawyers and opposition parties say it threatens to make that process hollow.