May is an ominous month in Fijian political life and as Michael Field reports, the country is heading to the ballot box amidst uncertainty and questions whether the military will accept the people's choice.
When Fijians start voting on Monday a crucial factor will determine the outcome - race.
To ensure indigenous dominance while giving its other races a sense of democracy, the South Pacific nation indulges in voting gymnastics to produce an acceptable result.
Coups in 1987 and 2000 highlight the dangers.
In the first the army's number three, Sitiveni Rabuka, overthrew the just elected Fiji Labour Party (FLP) led government of Dr Timoci Bavadra. In 2000 a ragtag band of plotters led by now jailed traitor George Speight seized the year old government of FLP Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry.
Held hostage for 56 days, Mr Chaudhry never returned to office after military head Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama declared martial law and installed retired banker Laisenia Qarase as caretaker prime minister.
In 2001 Mr Qarase, head of the newly formed indigenous Soqosoqo Duavata Lewenivanua (SDL) party, narrowly won elections, taking 31 of the 71 parliament seats to FLP's 27.
Five years and a lot of bitterness on Commodore Bainimarama has developed an extreme distaste for Mr Qarase that verges on sedition and treason.
Amidst rumours of coups to come, 338 candidates from 12 parties as well as independents, will face a week of balloting.
It's more than Indians vs Fijians. Vanua or tribal alliances in indigenous politics run ruinously deep, leading to the the tortuous voting system Fiji has inflicted on itself.
Election success depends, in part, on electoral boundaries accurately reflecting population. But Fiji has not had a census in over 10 years and the numbers today are guesswork.
Over 100,000 Indo-Fijians have left the country since Rabuka's coup. Anecdotally massive population movements have taken place within the country from the sugar cane belt in the west, to the squatter camps around Suva and Nadi, as Indo-Fijians leave farming, either willingly or not.
The Fiji Islands Bureau of Statistics estimated that last December the population was 846,085. Of that 55 percent were indigenous Fijian, 37 percent Indian (in 1966 they were 51 percent) and others, whites, Chinese and Rotumans 8 percent.
Voter registration is by race and there are 26,000 fewer Indians on the current rolls than on the 2001 rolls. No one knows where they have gone but more than likely they emigrated.
Indigenous voters have 23 ''Fijian communal'' electorates; Mr Qarase, for example, is running in the Lau Fijian Communal. Indians vote in 19 Indian seats. There are three general and one Rotuman seat.
All vote in 25 ''open constituency'' seats; Mr Chaudhry is competing in the ''Ba Open''.
From 1970 to 1999 Fiji used first-past-the-post with multi-member electorates. This will be the third time they have gone to the ballot with the ''alternative vote'' preferential system. Relatively simple in outline, in Fiji it makes Machiavelli look like a neophyte.
What is crucial is whether a person votes "above or below the line".
For each electorate the party name and symbol and the name of independent candidates is on top, above a thick black line. The same names and symbols are laid out below the line. Voters are required to either tick their choices above the line, or below it.
Voting below the line requires voters to number each candidate by preference.
If people vote ''above the line'' - and the majority do - they simply tick one box, that of their preferred party. Rather than the voter determining the preferences of other candidates, the party who won the above the line vote trades the preferences of the rest. These preferences are negotiated between the parties in smoke-filled backroom deals before the election.
In a Pacific version of real politick, parties make deals with their worst political enemies.
In the Nadroga and Serua/Navosa Open seats the National Federation Party (NFP) - once the flag carrier for Indians - is giving its priority preferences to the Nationalist Vanua Tako Lavo Party led by five times election failure Iliesa Duvuloco.
Just after Speight charged into Parliament with gunmen on May 19, 2000, he was seen to make several furious phone calls, telling people he was waiting for the real leader of the coup to come. It was finally revealed in a treason trial two years later, that the man Speight was calling was Mr Duvuloco.
He now says bread and butter issues are secondary to the election, with ''sovereignty'' supreme.
NFP general secretary Pramod Rae fears though that the ''extremely dangerous issue'' of ethnicity was getting worse, with the issue no longer just Indian vs Fijian for the premiership.
''It may become a question of whether the prime ministership should be reserved for a Lauan or a Bauan or someone from some other province.''
But to keep fellow Indian Mr Chaudhry out of office, NFP does a deal with Mr Duvoloco - a man who wants all Indians out of Fiji.
It's expected to be a close result with Mr Qarase's SDL taking 38 seats, but FLP - which got 37 seats in 1999 elections - tends to play a more skilful tactical game with preferences. The simple fact that Indo-Fijians have left suggests Mr Chaudhry has the harder battle and the numbers have pushed Mr Qarase into playing the race card harder than he may have wanted.
Voting runs from Monday to Friday next week, followed by a weekend return of ballot boxes to the capital and the counting, conducted at Speight's old school, Suva Grammar.
A candidate only wins when he or she has half of all the votes.
In the first round the first preference votes are counted. If one candidate has more than half of the first preference votes, that is he or she is the first choice candidate of more than half the votes, then a winner is declared.
But it seldom happens and a second round of counting begins but with the least popular candidate, the one with the fewest first preference votes , eliminated. That candidates' second preferences are transferred and all the votes counted again. The process keeps going until a winner is found. It can take up to four days although Mr Chaudhry's 1999 landslide win was evident within the first two hours of counting. Mr Qarase's 2001 win was clouded by weeks of coalition negotiations.
Michael Field, whose book Speight of Violence on the 2000 coup was published last year, will cover the Fiji elections for Fairfax


Panel

Dramatis personae
Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama, 51, erratic military commander who has several times threatened to remove the prime minister and re-assert martial law.
Mahendra Pal Chaudhry, 64, hard talking trade unionist from the sugar belt, head of the National Farmers Union, co-founded the Fiji Labour Party in 1985 and survived detention in the 1987 coup and held and beaten badly during the 2000 coup. Was prime minister for exactly one year.
Laisenia Qarase, 65, a Polynesian from the Lau Islands, he is an Auckland University commerce graduate before working in development banking in Fiji. Took up a senate seat in 1999 and after the 2000 coup was plucked form obscurity to head a caretake administration under martial law. Won democratic elections in 2001 and held office since.
Sitiveni Rabuka, 57, the man who isn't there. Staged two military coups in 1987, rescinded the constitution and became prime minister, before changing the constitution again and losing to Mr Chaudhry in 1999. He is currently in an Indian hospital recovering from knee replacement surgery. Speaking to an Indian newspaper he said prime ministers tend to carry the burden of their country on their shoulders and spend much time ''praying on their knees.''


Maybe - Fiji's terrible month
May 14, 1987 - Sitiveni Rabuka stages Fiji's first coup.
May 19, 1999 - Mahendra Chaudhry sworn in as first Indo-Fijian prime minister
May 19, 2000 - George Speight stages coup, taking parliamentarians hostage.