1 October 2021

The Fijian Elections Office wishes to respond to the above statement issued by Mr. Mahendra Chaudhry as follows:

1. The registration of a voter on the National Register of Voters is valid for life and it is the VoterCard that is currently being upgraded.
2. Chaudhry did not attend the Political Parties Virtual meeting convened by the Supervisor of Elections on 30 September 2021 and as such he has missed out on all the information in relation to voter cards, voter registration, polling venue management and election preparation. The apparent lack of accurate information in his statement can be attributed to his failure to attend the meeting.
3. The announcement of the expiry of the green coloured voter card has been done since 2019. (please refer to numerous press releases and media statements in this regard).
4. On 25^th May 2020, the Chairperson of the Electoral Commission, Mr. Suresh Chandra announced that the ‘green coloured’ voter cards would expire on 30 June 2021.
5. Under section 19D (3) of the Electoral (Registration of Voters) Act 2012, the Supervisor of Elections has upgraded the security features of the voter card and as such the same was announced to have expired.
6. All voters that are holding on to the green coloured voter card will have to upgrade to the blue coloured voter card.

We urge political parties to attend all the meetings and workshops so that they can be up-to-date with accurate knowledge of the electoral processes. Mr. Chaudhry appears to have made this statement without having full and accurate knowledge of the facts. The entire information was provided to all the participants of the Political Parties meeting.

As we did in 2018, we again reiterate going into the 2022 General Election, the need for the media and political parties to ensure that all information they publish regarding elections is accurate and where they are unsure, the information is verified with the Fijian Elections Office before it is published.

We have noted the manner in which Fiji Village has reported the statement and we find that it will still contribute to the misinformation that arises from Mr. Chaudhry’s statement. And we urge Fiji Village to reconsider the manner in which it reports clarifications issued by the FEO on electoral matters.

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