Ofakilomaloma Swann, also known as Ofa Duncan, is a

Fiji Fiji, officially the Republic of Fiji, is an island country in Melanesia, part of Oceania in the South Pacific Ocean. It lies about north-northeast of New Zealand. Fiji consists of an archipelago of more than 330 islands—of which about ...

an lawyer, academic, and former politician. She served in the

House of Representatives of Fiji The House of Representatives was the lower chamber of Fiji's Parliament from 1970 to 2006. It was the more powerful of the two chambers; it alone had the power to initiate legislation (the Senate, by contrast, could amend or veto most legislat ...

from 1999 to 2006, and was leader of the

New Labour Unity Party The New Labour Unity Party was a Fijian political party, which broke away from the Fiji Labour Party in May 2001. It was founded by Tupeni Baba, a former Deputy Prime Minister and Labour Party stalwart, who had become dissatisfied with Mahendra ...

. Swann is from

Vanua Balavu Vanua Balavu (pronounced ) is the third largest island in Fiji's Lau archipelago, and the main island of the Northern Lau Group. Geography and infrastructure This coral and volcanic island has a land area of . Its maximum elevation is . The isl ...

in the

Lau Islands The Lau Islands (also called the Lau Group, the Eastern Group, the Eastern Archipelago) of Fiji are situated in the southern Pacific Ocean, just east of the Koro Sea. Of this chain of about sixty islands and islets, about thirty are inhabited. T ...

. She was elected to represent the Suva City Open Constituency in the

House of Representatives House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entities. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often ...

in 1999 as a candidate of the United General Party (now the United People's Party), garnering 31.9% of the vote on the first count, and 56.2% after votes for minor candidates had been redistributed under Fiji's transferable voting system. She retained the seat in 2001 as a candidate of the newly formed

(NLUP); this time the electorate was much more fractured and she polled only 12.5% of first-preference votes, but finished with 59.8% after the final distribution of preferences. She was subsequently elected Deputy Leader of the Opposition. When Kenneth Zinck, the only other NLUP MP, defied orders from the party and joined the government, Swann remained a member of the Opposition. Following the collapse of the NLUP she contested the 2006 election as an independent. Running against several nationally known candidates, Swann was defeated, polling only 341 votes out of more than 12,000. Following the

2006 Fijian coup d'état The Fijian coup d'état of December 2006 was a coup d'état in Fiji carried out by Commodore (rank), Commodore Frank Bainimarama against Prime Minister of Fiji, Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase and President Josefa Iloilo. It was the culminatio ...

Swann was removed from her position on the board of the

Civil Aviation Authority of Fiji The Civil Aviation Authority of Fiji (CAAF) is the civil aviation authority in the Republic of Fiji and is responsible for discharging functions on behalf of the Government of Fiji under the States responsibility to the Convention on Internatio ...

by the military regime. She subsequently studied for a Master's degree in Psychology at the

University of the South Pacific The University of the South Pacific (USP) is a public research university with locations spread throughout a dozen countries in Oceania. Established in 1968, the university is organised as an intergovernmental organisation and is owned by the gov ...

, and then worked there as a lecturer. In February 2023 she was appointed to the council of

Fiji National University Fiji National University is a public university in Fiji that was formally constituted on 15 February 2010 under the Fiji National University Act 2009. By 2019, student numbers at the University had grown to almost 27,000. While each of the co ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Swann, Ofa Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Ethnic minority members of the House of Representatives (Fiji) New Labour Unity Party politicians United Peoples Party (Fiji) politicians Politicians from Vanua Balavu University of the South Pacific alumni Academic staff of the University of the South Pacific