The Fijian Elections office [‘FEO’] has released its 2022 General Election: Election Readiness Survey Report.

At the time of the inception of the report, the Supervisor of Elections [‘SoE’], Mr Mohammed Saneem had said that this would be the second survey for this year, and it will give the opportunity to FEO and the users of the survey to determine certain trends and patterns in the build up to the general election.

“Following the conclusion of the data gathering phase, it was noted that there were 8,154 responses from the various parts of Fiji from people who were randomly selected to provide responses,” Mr Saneem said.

“The information was only collected from persons who were registered voters and the voter number was recorded in order for the survey to be accepted into the system. Out of the survey respondents, 44% were male and 56% were female.”

The key findings of the survey for noting are as follows:

• It is noted that voters who are currently still on the Green colored VoterCard, are finding it much more difficult to identify the Polling Venue in which they will be voting in the general election. Meanwhile, 96% of the voters on the Blue VoterCard, find it very easy to find the Polling Venue for the next general election.

• It is noted that 46% of the respondents who said that they did not know where they would be voting were living at an address that was different from what was on their VoterCard. This means that this is the group of people that need to immediately upgrade or update their details on the VoterCard.

• 96% of the survey respondents knew how to vote in the 2022 General Election.

• It is noted that 94% of the respondents indicated that they came across information from the FEO regarding the 2022 General Election, ‘Occasionally’, ‘Frequently’ or ‘A lot’.

• 40% of the sample population surveyed had indicated that they had not come across campaign materials for the 2022 General Election from political parties. 35% had indicated that they did while the remaining 25% said they were not sure if the material they had accessed was campaign material from political parties.

• It is noted that less females as opposed to males had come across campaign materials from political parties. It is also noted that 30% of the respondents in the age group of 18 to 20 years said they had come across campaign material from political parties while 70% said they had not.

• Of the 8,075 voters that had responded to the question, 84% indicated that the FEO had either released ‘A lot’ of information on the 2022 General Election (35%), or ‘Just enough’ (49%).

• 84% of the sample voting population had indicated that exercising their right to vote in the 2022 General Election will either be ‘Easy’ (47%) or ‘Very easy’ (37%). 2% of the respondents said it will be ‘Very hard’.

• Of the respondents who said exercising their right to vote in 2022 would be ‘Very hard’, 74% indicated they were in fact able to get information from the FEO on the 2022 General E And in that 74%, 47% said that they ‘Occasionally’ came across information. 26% of those that thought it would be very hard to vote said they ‘Never’ came across information from the FEO.

• 94% of the respondents who indicated it would be ‘Very easy’ to exercise their right to vote in 2022, believed the FEO had released enough information about the general election with 65% saying ‘A lot’ and 29% saying ‘Just enough’ information had been released. 56% of the respondents who indicated it would be ‘Very hard’ (2% of the overall respondents surveyed) believed that the FEO had released ‘A little’ information on the 2022 General E

• Going into the 2022 General Election, 91% of the sample indicated it will either be ‘Easy’ (42%) or ‘Very easy’ (49%) for voters to locate their Polling V It is also noted that over 40% of the respondents with the Blue VoterCard find it ‘Very easy’ to find their Polling Venue since it is directly written on their VoterCard.

• 94% of the sample surveyed indicated that Fijians have been given sufficient opportunity to access voter services with 45% saying ‘More than enough’ and 49% saying that they have been given ‘Enough’ opportunity to access voter services such as upgrade of VoterCard.

• 91% of the respondents said the FEO had done enough to make voters aware of the 2022 General Election.

• Over 88% of the respondents across all age groups reported that the FEO had either done ‘Enough’ or ‘More than enough’ to make voters aware of the 2022 General Election.

• Overall, 85% of the voters surveyed, regardless of their education level answered that sufficient effort was undertaken by the FEO to make voters aware of the 2022 General E

• More than half of the respondents (56%) said they took ‘A little” interest in politics while 27% said they took ‘A lot’ of interest and 16% said they didn’t take any interest at all.

• In the Pre-Election Survey that was conducted earlier in the year, it was noted that 22% had said they took “A lot’ of interest, 52% had said they took ‘A little’ interest and 26% had no interest. The percentage of respondents who said they took no interest has reduced by 6% in this survey in comparison to the earlier one.

• Of the respondents who said they took ‘A lot’ of interest in politics, only 62% indicated they came across campaign materials from political parties while only 27% of the group that took ‘A little’ interest came across campaign materials.

• 81% of the respondents who take ‘A lot’ of interest in politics are planning to read the manifestos of all political parties. Of the group that indicated they take no interest in politics, 16% said they will be reading manifestos while 48% said they may read them.

• 91% of the respondents who take ‘A lot’ of interest in politics indicated they were either ‘Very likely’ (63%) or ‘Likely’ (28%) to attend a political party event or rally. For the group that took no interest in politics, 34% indicated they had interest in attending a party event or rally with 25% saying they were ‘Likely’ to attend and 9% saying ‘Very likely’.

• The majority of the respondents regardless of their levels of interest in politics have indicated that they will be voting in the 2022 General Election (over 96%).

• 43% of the respondents indicated they will be reading political party manifestos while 40% said they may read them and 17% indicated they would not.

• As the education level increases, the interest to read manifestos also increases. The level of disinterest in manifestos also reduces. It is noted that there is lower levels of interest in reading manifestos amongst unemployed individuals.

• Of the 3,467 respondents who said they will be reading political party manifestos, 32% of them indicated that they had not come across campaign material from political parties while 13% were not sure. Of the 3,211 respondents who said they may read manifestos, only 19% had come across campaign material from political parties. This is an opportunity for political parties.

• Of the respondents who indicated they will be reading manifestos, 50% were ‘Very likely’ and 39% were ‘Likely’ to also attend a political rally or event. Interestingly, of the respondents who said they will not be reading manifestos, 40% were ‘Likely’ to still attend a political event or rally while 10% were ‘Very likely’ to.

• 27% of the sample voting population indicated they were ‘Very Likely’ to attend a political rally or event while 45% said they were ‘Likely’ to do so and 28% indicated they were unlikely to attend.

• 99% of the voters surveyed indicated that they will be voting in their 2022 General Election.

• 22% of those who said they did not know that there would be a general election this year, will still be voting. It could be that the survey respondents have understood this question to mean that they are expected to already know the date for the general election and hence they said No.

• It is also noted that the interest in voting has increased by 1% between the last survey and this one.

• A higher percentage of respondents who indicated that they will not vote are not aware of all the political parties in Fiji. Not knowing all the options in the election may be a reason to deter them from voting. Generally, the survey results point to a lack of knowledge amongst voters about all the political parties in Fiji and their plans post-election. The survey also shows that there are lower levels of interest in politics and political rallies amongst females.

Speaking on the findings, Mr Saneem said the survey had presented an exciting set of data for enthusiasts and analysts to gauge the trends building up to the 2022 General Election.

“The baseline survey that was done earlier in the year has also presented the FEO with excellent indicators in terms of the initiatives that the FEO needs to undertake in order to work on the areas of demand,” he explained.

“The survey has also provided useful insights for political parties and other relevant stakeholders in terms of the areas in which there are possibilities and opportunities for them. Of great interest are the findings from the survey of the lack of interest taken by the female population in politics, as well as their interest in terms of accessing political party related information.

“It may be necessary for political parties to use this data to build on their access and communication to this population, as they make up nearly 50% of the voting population, and in 2018, it was found that more females had voted than males,” Mr Saneem added.

The Election Readiness Survey Report can be accessed on https://bit.ly/3RLMdMh.

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