Statement by the Supervisor of Elections
Mr Mohammed Saneem
Suva – 31 October 2022
Electoral Commission Chairperson,
Fellow Electoral Commission Members,
Invited Guests,
Members of the media,
Ladies and gentlemen.
I echo the sentiments of the Chairperson of the Electoral Commission [‘EC’]. Today, the Writ for the 2022 General Election has been issued and since the issuance of the Writ, there are quite a few electoral activities that will come to a close and various other electoral activities that will commence.
I will be first touching on the electoral activities that are going to close. As the Chair has mentioned in his speech, voter registration, which is one of the critical aspects of elections, will now cease together with the upgrading of the VoterCards and the updating of voter details such as address.
Today, to assist as many voters as possible, the Fijian Elections Office[FEO] has established 63 hotspots, in various towns and cities. We have got outdoor broadcasts with all media radio stations for voters to be made aware of the activities of the FEO today.
Ladies and Gentlemen, together with that, our teams will be pushing out registration messages in high intensity. As I have said, after the close of registration today, you will not be able to change your address and change your Polling Venue, you will not be able to correct your name, you will also not be able to register as a new voter once the registration closes.
The other aspect of issuance of Writ is the closing of Political Party registrations. Ladies and Gentlemen, after the issuance of the Writ which has already happened, no more political parties will be registered and as the Chair has recalled, we now have nine (9) registered political parties that are contesting the 2022 General Election should they all wish to nominate.
Going forward, ladies and gentlemen, various electoral activities will now commence.
From tomorrow, the nomination for candidates will commence. Following consultation with Political Parties, we will be announcing the itinerary through which political parties will be nominating. And we invite all political parties to make bookings with the FEO so that on the final day of nominations, we do not have a last minute rush of Political Parties coming in because if any candidate for political parties is rejected on the last day, they cannot replace that candidate with another.
Also ladies and gentlemen, Postal Voting Applications are still open. As at 8am this morning, we received 35 Postal Vote applications and if you are tuning in right now, and have not yet applied for a Postal Ballot, please note that the Postal Vote applications will continue until 23rd November 2022.
Ladies and Gentlemen, in tomorrow’s newspapers’, the Fijian Elections Office and the Electoral Commission will be publishing a lot of information. We will be publishing the Writ for your perusal; we will also be publishing the entire Election Timeline with key dates and times so that you can keep track of the election activities.
Ladies and Gentlemen, from this day onwards, campaigning is going to intensify, and I would like to take this opportunity at the very first occasion to remind Political Parties and candidates of the key legal requirements in restrictions for campaign.
We also understand that now that the competition is going to get more intense, the campaign is going to replicate in the same manner and therefore, all the actors are being urged to be responsible for their behavior as well as their conduct. Please comply with the law.
Political Parties must work with their supporters to ensure that there is no ‘hate speech’, that there is no threatening or undue influence behavior, in fact campaigns should be clean as possible.
I also urge all Fijians to be respectful in other people’s views and opinions. Let everyone enjoy their right to political participation.
With that being said ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank His Excellency, the President for issuing the Writ and for hosting us this morning we will now exit to commence with Election preparations.
Thank you and Vinaka Vakalevu.
