The Registrar of Political Parties, Ms Ana Mataiciwa, has today rejected the application for registration by the proposed ‘FijiansFirst’.
Ms Mataiciwa confirmed that objections were received from two (2) political parties in relation to the application. They were from the National Federation Party (NFP) and The People’s Alliance (TPA).
The objections were mainly around the unauthorised use of the coat of arms in the symbol of the proposed party, the symbol being similar to the symbol used by FijiFirst, the name FijiansFirst nearly resembling the deregistered FijiFirst, and the acronym of the proposed party may likely be FFP which is associated with FijiFirst.
“Based on NFP and TPAs objections on similarity between the proposed name FijiansFirst and FijiFirst, I find that the proposed name so nearly resembles that of the deregistered party “FijiFirst” as to be likely to be confused with or mistaken for that party within the meaning of section 8(h)(iii) of the Political Parties (Registration, Conduct, Funding and Disclosures) Act 2013 (PPA). Therefore, the application for registration of Proposed FijiansFirst is hereby refused,” said Ms Mataiciwa.
Section 8(h)(iii) of the PPA states:
The Registrar shall refuse an application for the registration of a proposed political party if—
(h) the name of the proposed political party, the abbreviation or acronym of the name of the symbol is the same as the name, the abbreviation or acronym of the name or symbol of-
- a political party which has been deregistered or wound up by the Registrar under this Act or any repealed law governing registrations of political parties.
All other grounds of objection raised by the NFP and TPA, including those relating to the symbol, the use of national imagery and the likely use of the abbreviation “FFP”, have been considered and do not meet the statutory threshold under section 8(b) of PPA or section 8(h)(iii) of PPA and are accordingly rejected.
The Proposed FijiansFirst may appeal to the Electoral Commission within 14 days of the date of this decision in accordance with section 30(1) of the PPA.
