Prem Singh is a Fiji

Fiji

Fiji , officially the Republic of Fiji , is an island nation in Melanesia in the South Pacific Ocean about northeast of New Zealand's North Island...

an politician and a member of the National Federation Party

National Federation Party (Fiji)

The National Federation Party is a Fijian political party founded by A.D. Patel in November 1968, as a merger of the Federation Party and the National Democratic Party...

 (NFP). An Indo-Fijian, he won the Nadi

Nadi (Open Constituency, Fiji)

Nadi Open is an electoral division of Fiji, one of 25 open constituencies elected by universal suffrage . Like the other open electorates, it came into being in 1999 and was used for the parliamentary elections of 1999, 2001, and 2006...

 Open constituency

Open constituencies (Fiji)

Open constituencies represent one of several electoral models employed in the past and present in the Fijian electoral system. They derive their name from the fact that they are "open": unlike the communal constituencies, the 25 members of the House of Representatives who represent open...

 in the election of 2001

Fiji election of 2001

The Constitution of Fiji was restored by a High Court decision on 15 November 2000, following the failure of the political upheaval in which the government had been deposed and the constitution suspended in May that year. On 1 March 2001, the Appeal Court upheld the decision. An election to...

, becoming the only candidate of his party to win a parliamentary

House of Representatives (Fiji)

The House of Representatives is the lower chamber of Fiji's Parliament. It is the more powerful of the two chambers; it alone has the power to initiate legislation...

 seat. He was subsequently appointed Leader of the Opposition

Leader of the Opposition (Fiji)

The post of Leader of the Opposition is a political office common in countries that are part of the Commonwealth of Nations. It did not originate in Fiji but has a long tradition; in British constitutional theory, the Leader of the Opposition must pose a formal alternative to the government, ready...

, after the Fiji Labour Party

Fiji Labour Party

The Fiji Labour Party is a political party in Fiji, which holds observer status with the Socialist International. Most of its support at present comes from the Indo-Fijian community, although it is officially multiracial and its first leader was an indigenous Fijian, Dr. Timoci Bavadra. It is...

 leader, Mahendra Chaudhry

Mahendra Chaudhry

Mahendra Pal Chaudhry is a Fijian politician and the leader of the Fiji Labour Party...

, declined the office, insisting that his party wanted Cabinet

Cabinet (Fiji)

Fiji has the Westminster system - executive authority is vested nominally in a President, but exercised in practice by a Cabinet of Ministers, presided over by the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister is formally appointed, but not chosen, by the President: the President must appoint as Prime...

 representation instead.

Singh's tenure as Leader of the Opposition was brief, as a court challenge by his defeated opponent, Krishna Prasad

Krishna Prasad

Krishna Prasad ,was a Fijian politician of Indian descent, who held the Nadi Open Constituency in the House of Representatives for the Fiji Labour Party in the parliamentary election of 2001...

 of the Fiji Labour Party, deprived him of his seat in Parliament when Judge Anthony Gates

Anthony Gates

Anthony Harold Cumberland Thomas Gates is Acting Chief Justice of Fiji.-Early life:Gates was born in the United Kingdom and is a graduate of Cambridge University, and holds Australian citizenship. He had served as a volunteer teacher as a VSO in Sierra Leone and Sri Lanka...

 ruled on 8 February 2002 that more than a thousand votes, most of them for Prasad, that had been disqualified should not have been. Prem Singh appealed this decision to the Supreme Court which ruled that even though the ruling by Judge Anthony Gates was incorrect, the Constitution did not allow for the appeal of a Court of Disputed Returns ruling.

On 7 December 2005, the NFP named Singh to a 3-member "Negotiating Committee," charged with negotiating electoral pacts with other political parties for the parliamentary election

Fiji election of 2006

The Constitution of Fiji requires general elections for the House of Representatives to be held at least once every five years. The latest election was held on 6-13 May 2006. Acting President Ratu Joni Madraiwiwi issued a proclamation on 2 March, effective from 27 March, dissolving Parliament...

 held in 2006.