THE Constitution Commission is hoping to hear more submissions on the electoral system people hope to follow in place of communal voting.
This was the word from Constitution Commission member Prof Christina Murray as the commission team prepared to travel to Vanua Levu next month.
“Many people have been concerned about a code of ethics for MPs, about the integrity of public servants, about mechanisms for curbing corruption, but we’ve heard quite a lot less about the actual electoral system,” she said.
“The decree says the electoral system can no longer be based on communal voting, so there won’t be seats for particular racial groups, but there has to be another system and the question is what that system should be.”
Prof Murray said under the decree parties needed to be represented in parliament in proportion to the number of votes they received across the country.
“But another question that could be asked is if people want MPs for their districts as well, are there ideas for how women or disabled people and other minority groups will be represented in parliament — we’d be interested to hear what people’s thoughts are about that.”
Prof Murray also alluded to the fact that very little was being heard on people’s views regarding local government.
“In Fiji there is quite a complicated structure of urban governments and their provincial and district councils and, of course, their villages — they all run under different structures.
“We’d quite like to hear whether people want to have more say over those things, how those bodies should be put together and whether different bodies should be thought about.”
Prof Murray said the commission had received a few submissions on the issue of local government.
“Some have asked for more integration, some have asked for more direct elections at different places and others have asked for the more traditional structures to be reverted to or secured,” she said.