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Last Updated: Apr 9, 2007 - 12:46:40 AM |
FIJI'S caretaker Prime Minister, Laisenia Qarase, has won his parliamentary seat and the major parties are evenly matched in early results of Pacific nation's election count.
Mr Qarase credited outspoken military chief Frank Bainimarama's anti-government campaign for creating a big turnout by indigenous Fijian voters in support of the ruling party.
Mr Qarase faces a challenge in the poll from former prime minister Mahendra Chaudhry, an ethnic Indian overthrown in the 2000 coup.
After counting overnight, the ruling SDL party had won 10 of the 71 seats contested, to Mr Chaudhry's Fiji Labour Party's nine, with votes going along traditional racial lines.
Labour ally the United People's Party had one seat.
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All of the results were in the 46 communal electorates determined by ethnicity. The SDL victories came in indigenous Fijian constituencies while Labour's were from ethnic Indian voters.
No results were final yet in the 25 open constituencies in which all races vote and where the election is likely to be decided.
Mr Qarase won 93 per cent of the vote in his Fijian communal electorate in the remote Lau group of islands.
He has been predicting the SDL would win 42 seats.
Before voting began last week, military boss Commodore Frank Bainimarama had conducted a controversial public relations push against Mr Qarase's government.
"The army commander's so-called truth and justice campaign against SDL is backfiring," Mr Qarase told Fiji Television.
"I think the campaign itself sort of sensitised the people to come out and vote, and they are strongly in support of my government."
Fiji election officials said the overall result will be known by tonight.
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