General elections were held in Fiji between 8 and 15 May 1999. They were the first election held under the revised Constitution of 1997, which instituted a new electoral system and resulted in Mahendra Chaudhry taking office as Fiji's first Indo-Fijian Prime Minister, following a landslide victory for the Fiji Labour Party. It was also a wipeout loss for the incumbent Soqosoqo ni Vakavulewa ni Taukei (SVT) government of Sitiveni Rabuka, which lost all but eight seats and won less seats than the Fijian Association Party (FAP).

Indo-Fijians, also known as Indian Fijians, are Fijian citizens of Indian descent, and include people who trace their ancestry to various regions of the Indian subcontinent. Although Indo-Fijians constituted a majority of Fiji's population from 1956 through the late 1980s, discrimination and the resulting brain drain resulted in them numbering 313,798 (37.6%) out of a total of 827,900 people living in Fiji as of 2007.