Elections and the chain of democratic choice

Abstract

This special issue of The Journal of Pacific Studies covers the 2018 general elections in the Republic of Fiji Islands and the 2019 general elections in Solomon Islands. In 2000, the two countries experienced the overthrow of democratically elected governments. On 19th May 2000, nine armed soldiers of the Counter Revolutionary Warfare Unit of the Republic of Fiji Military Forces led by failed business executive George Speight entered the Fiji parliament and held the Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry and his government hostage. A little over two weeks later on 5th June, Andrew Nori and the Malaita Eagle Force, a faction in the armed conflict in the Solomon Islands held elected Prime Minister Bartholomew Ulufa’alo hostage at gunpoint, and forced him to resign. These martial acts ruptured the constitutional rule of law and impaired democratic institutions and mechanisms in both countries.