Only two political parties in Fiji have met the re-registration deadline to contest next year's elections.

Political parties had until midnight to register under a tough new set of rules laid down in a recent government decree.

The new guidelines mean parties must have 5,000 members, an English name and no trade union leaders as party officials.

Only parties which have successfully reapplied will be allowed to contest the 2014 election.

Those that have applied will now wait three weeks to discover if the Registrar of Political Parties approves of their application, while parties that missed the deadline will now be disbanded and have their assets stripped and seized by the government.

Fiji's oldest party, the National Federation Party, and the Fiji Labour Party were the only two to meet the deadline.

The Fiji Labour Party has also launched a legal challenge to the decree.

FLP leader Mahendra Chaudry says he has applied to reregister the part with himself as leader, but that he will also still remain the General Secretary of the National Farmers Union.

One of the lawyers in the case, Rajenda Chaudry, says the decree's strict requirements for political party registration are designed to quash opposition.

"Clearly these requirements in this decree, they're not basic," he said.

"They're draconian and they're taking us back to the dark ages.

"This is total state control over freedom of speech, freedom of expression, so this a cause of concern not just for Fiji but for the international community as a whole."

The SDL party says it has been wound up as it did not have an English language name, but its former members say they intend to apply for registration as a new party.

New parties are also required to register, although the midnight deadline did not apply to them.

Already there are accusations that some of signatures gathered by parties to meet the membership target of 5,000 were lured under false pretences.