Question

Name a country where the vote of an indigenous citizen has more value than that of the migrants from other countries.

Answer 1

Hint:
This is a South Pacific nation and is an archipelago of over 300 islands.
It was in the year 1970 when after a century of British rule, this nation gained independence.
There were four constitutions in this nation and the voting system was modified accordingly.


Complete answer:
The state of Fiji on the Pacific Island is an ethnically divided nation with a history of political tension that has culminated in many coups. The indigenous Fijians and the Indo-Fijians are the 2 main ethnic groups. (Primarily the descendants of indentured workers brought from India by British colonists to work on sugar plantations during the 19th century.) These two classes are approximately similar in size-51.1 percent of the population is indigenous Fijian and 43.4 percent Indian, according to the 1996 census.

Since it became independent of the United Kingdom in 1970, Fiji has held 12 general elections, 10 for the House of Representatives; there have been multiple elections under colonial rule, but only one with universal suffrage (in 1966) and 2 for the Parliament of Fiji since the constitution was established in 2013.

Indigenous Fijians & Indo-Fijians have cast votes in separate communal constituencies since 1970, while "open" constituencies have also existed under 2 of the 3 constitutions since 1970. Political parties are more ethnically coded & ethnically dependent on voting. Since the population is roughly balanced, electoral victory in open constituencies appears to depend on the results. In Fiji, the delimitation of constituency boundaries, especially open constituencies, is of importance.

Historical Background

After independence from Britain in 1970, the transition to multi-ethnic democracy in Fiji appeared to be reasonably successful. But in 1987, following the election of a government seen as too close to the Indo-Fijian community by the indigenous Fijian-dominated military, two coups occurred. A new constitution was finally adopted, with clauses that weighed heavily in favour of the indigenous people.

A new electoral structure based entirely on communal representation of ethnic groups was introduced by the 1990 Constitution, with separate electoral rolls for Fijians, Indians and "general voters." In most senior government and administrative roles, including the office of the prime minister, the indigenous Fijian population was assured primacy; the Indo-Fijian population, on the other hand, was under-represented in government compared to its share of the population.

Thus the electoral system in Fiji is such that the vote of an indigenous Fijian has more importance than that of an Indian Fijian since the national constituencies were abolished under pressure from Fijian ethnic nationalists after two military coups in 1987, who opposed allowing non-indigenous citizens to vote for indigenous Fijian members. It thus renders Fiji's electoral system non-democratic.

Note:
Mahendra Chaudhry was Fiji's first Indo-Fijian Prime Minister.
The 51 members of Parliament in Fiji were elected by open list proportional representation with an electoral threshold of 5 percent from a single national constituency. Using the d'Hondt method, seats are distributed.
The D'Hondt or Jefferson method is a method of allocating seats with the highest averages, and is therefore a form of proportional representation of the party list.
On 14 November 2018, the last General Election was held in Fiji.