George Speight won the seat in the August general election, but he was stripped of it because he was in custody awaiting trial on treason charges.

The win had been expected because part of Tikoinasau's constituency has a substantial number of voters who are relatives, friends and supporters of the Speight family.

George Speight, a failed businessman, led a gang of gunmen who stormed parliament in May 2000 and toppled Fiji's first ethnic Indian-led government.

He was originally sentenced to death, but the sentence was commuted to a life jail term.

He said he launched the coup to win back political power for Fiji's indigenous population, which makes up about 51% of the nation's 820,000 population.

Coup 'could have been worse'

George Speight's girlfriend told a South Pacific newspaper on Monday that the Fijian coup could have been a lot worse.

Torika Rawlinson supported George Speight during the case

Torika Rawlinson told the University of the South Pacific newspaper Wansolwara that the rebels had planned to kill then prime minister Mahendra Chaudhry and his cabinet the night before the 2000 coup.

"The night before the actual takeover, there were plans that the cabinet members of the deposed government were supposed to have been executed in their homes," she said.

Instead Mr Chaudhry and his government were held hostage for 56 days.

Ms Rawlinson claimed that George Speight had since "given his life to the Lord".