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This was the first election held under the 1997 constitution, which established a House of Representatives made up of 71 members. The country is divided into 71 constituencies, each of which elects one member. Of these, 46 are communal seat constituencies in which a voter votes only for candidates from his/her own ethnic community. The other 25 constituencies are open seats, in which the voter votes for candidates from any ethnic community. So a voter has two ballot papers in which to cast two votes - one to choose his or her communal seat representative and one to choose his/her open seat representative.

There are 6 urban Fijian communal constituencies of which each have about the same number of voters. Another 14 Fijian constituencies follow the provincial boundaries, while the provinces of Ba, Tailevu and Cakaudrove are divided into 2 constituencies each. Both the 19 Indian and 3 General Voter communal constituencies have been drawn up so that each has roughly an equal number of votes from that particular community. The Rotuman communal constituency covers the whole of Fiji. The 25 open seat constituencies have been drawn up in such a way that each has roughly the same number of voters, and each has a good proportion of people from the different ethnic communities.

Elections were held under the Alternative Vote system where voting was done by showing preferences. This meant putting each candidate in order - from the candidate most preferred to win as the 1st choice, to the candidate least preferred to win as the last choice. Voting for both the communal seat constituency and the open seat constituency is conducted in this way.

Under the Alternative Vote system a candidate only wins when he or she has got more than half of all the votes in that constituency. In the first round of counting all of the 1st preference (1st choice) votes are counted. If one candidate has more than half of all the 1st preference votes. (i.e. if he or she is the first choice candidate of more than half of the voters) - then he or she is declared the winner straight away. If no candidate gets more than half of the 1st preference votes, the least popular candidate, the one with the fewest 1st preference votes , is eliminated. This candidate’s ballot papers are then looked at again, and his or her votes are transferred to the candidates who are marked as the 2nd preference on each of these ballot papers. All of the votes are then counted again to see if any candidate now have enough to win.

If there is still no winner, then the candidate who now has the fewest votes is eliminated, and his or her votes are transferred to whichever candidate is next in the order of each voter’s preferences. This process of eliminating one candidate and transferring their votes is repeated until one candidate has more than half of all the votes and wins.

The election was held for a week between 8 May 1999 and 15 May 1999 . Other relevant dates are:
   21 March  1999 - Dissolution of House of Representatives
   9 April  1999 - Nomination Day
  

The election was fought by two major political groupings. The first was an alliance between the Prime Minister, Sitiveni Rabuka's Soqosoqo Ni Vakavulewa Ni Taukei Party (SVT) (Fijian Political Party),  Jai Ram Reddy's National Federation Party (NFP) and the United General Party (UGP). The other was The People's Coalition made up of the Fiji Labour Party (FLP), led by Mahendra Chaudhry, the Fijian Association Party (FAP), led by Adi Kuini Speed, and the Party of National Unity (PANU), led by Apisai Tora.  A record number of 20 parties (many of which had only recently been formed) and over 300 candidates were registered to contest the 71 seats at stake.

Final results gave 52 seats to the  People's Coalition,  with Labour winning 37. The SVT, for its part, suffered heavy losses, retaining only eight seats. The NFP did not win any seats. Seats won by each political party was as follows:

In accordance with the Constitution, President of the Republic, Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara was to choose the Prime Minister from among those with a majority backing in Parliament. On 19 May, Mr. Chaudhry was sworn in to this post as head of a coalition government comprising the FLP, FAP and PANU; his Cabinet was announced two days later.