A Catholic priest in Fiji is advocating changes to the country's system of voting ahead of the next election to ensure that the new parliament is truly representative.
Father David Arms is a newly appointed electoral commissioner, but speaking in a private capacity yesterday he told a Pacific Co-operation Foundation seminar in Wellington that the present Alternative Vote, or AV system, is deeply flawed.
He says there have been very disproportionate results all three elections held under the 1997 constitution.
"And has actually not only led to unfair results but has also tended to divide the people into parties according to ethnic groups which was the very opposite to what the commissioners proposed and thought that the AV system would do."
Father Arms says it could be replaced by a form of proportional representation which ideally would be in place before the next election or Fiji risks another term with an unrepresentative government.
