Kenneth Vincent Zinck (born 16 June 1959, Suva, Fiji) is a Fijian politician, who served in the Cabinet from 2001 to 2006 as Minister for Labour, Industrial Relations, and Productivity. Elections of 1999 and 2001 An earlier foray into politics was in the general election of 1999, when he contested the Suva City Open constituency as a candidate of the Fiji Labour Party. He received 29.8 percent of the vote on the first count, some two percentage points behind the United General Party (UGP) candidate Ofa Duncan (now Ofa Swann); when votes for minor candidates had been redistributed under Fiji's transferable voting system, he was more than ten percentage points behind Duncan. His second attempt, in the 2001 election, was successful. In the meantime, a coup d'état had deposed the elected government in 2000 and some major political realignments had taken place. Now a member of the New Labour Unity Party (NLUP), he contested the Suva City General Electors Communal constituency, one of three reserved for ethnic minorities. Zinck won almost 33 percent of the vote on the first count, and went on to defeat Kenneth Mang-Kwong Low of the Soqosoqo Duavata ni Lewenivanua (SDL) with more than 60 percent, after preferences had been distributed. He was one of only two NLUP candidates to be elected, the other being Duncan, who had defected from the UGP. The election produced an inconclusive result; Laisenia Qarase's SDL emerged as the largest single party, with 32 of the 71 seats, short of an overall majority in the House of Representatives. Qarase cobbled together a coalition with a number of smaller parties and independents. Zinck defied the NLUP leadership by accepting a Cabinet post, and after repeated refusals to resign, he was expelled from the party on 4 December 2003. He officially remained a NLUP parliamentarian, however, even though the party was deregistered in 2005. Election of 2006: defeat On 20 February 2006, Zinck said he had decided to contest the upcoming election, which was later held on 6–13 May, as an independent candidate. He had been invited to join the SDL, he told the Fiji Village news service, but had chosen to run as an independent at the request of his own constituents. Nevertheless, he declared that if elected as an independent, he would continue to support an SDL-led government, and expected to be included in any post-election Cabinet, according to Fiji Live