The question appears to be not whether his Fiji First party will receive the most votes, but whether it will gain an outright majority of Parliament's 50 seats under Fiji's new proportional system. If the election is deemed fair by international observers, it will likely wash away the last remaining barriers put up by Western countries after Bainimarama first seized power in a 2006 coup. [...] a stable government afterward could see international investors return. [...] Brij Lal, a professor at the Australian National University and longtime critic of the regime, said the international community is so eager to reward Fiji for holding the election that it's willing to overlook Bainimarama's troubling past. Lal said that includes years of strict media censorship which ensured he was portrayed favorably, human rights violations, and meddling with the constitution to ensure he and other coup leaders would remain immune from prosecution. Wyatt Creech, a former New Zealand lawmaker who is one of about 100 international observers posted to Fiji to determine whether the election is fair, said there have been problems and complaints on remote islands but nothing that appears deliberate or fraudulent. "The Commonwealth has valued having Fiji as a full member in the past and looks forward to reinstating Fiji fully back in the family upon its credible transition back to civilian, constitutional democracy," Commonwealth spokeswoman Victoria Holdsworth said in an email.
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