Kant, Romitesh2025-12-172025-12-170035-8533ORCID:/0000-0001-9242-2128/work/198509235https://hdl.handle.net/1885/733795701This article examines how political masculinities were performed, contested, and institutionalised during and after Fiji’s 2022 general elections. Drawing on political masculinities, decolonial critique, and intersectional analysis, it traces how racialised and militarised masculinities shaped leadership legitimacy across campaign rhetoric, coalition dynamics and the post-election landscape. Based on qualitative fieldwork, the study reveals how dominant, dominating, and complicit masculinities were rearticulated through imagery, rhetoric, and reconciliation rituals. It argues that Fiji’s political transition reconfigured, but did not dismantle, the masculinised foundations of power, offering critical insights into how patriarchal authority adapts within postcolonial, multi-ethnic democracies.This work was supported by the Australian National University. The Routledge/Round Table Commonwealth Studentship supported fieldwork for this paper, enabling in-depth research in Fiji.23en© 2025 The Author(s).Fiji electionsgender and powermilitarisationpatriarchyPolitical masculinities2025-09-0110.1080/00358533.2025.2547255105014925679