Statement by the Supervisor of Elections

Mr Mohammed Saneem

1 November 2022

FEO Media Center

8am

Good morning Ladies and Gentlemen.

I would like to thank the Chairperson for executing the Electoral Commission’s role under the Electoral Act by issuing the Notice of Nominations. With the issuance of such notice, the Nomination process will now commence.

The Fijian Elections Office is now ready to receive nominations from Political Parties, they can make an appointment with us and we will deal with the nominations as we receive it.

Ladies and gentlemen, another reminder is that the $1,000 has to be Fijian currency and it has to be by either a bank cheque or a legal tender. We will not accept personal cheques, political party cheques or any other kind of payment. Even for this transaction, we will not be accepting M-PaiSA payment. The political parties and individuals who are intending to carry out this process will need to make necessary arrangements with their banks.

Now ladies and gentlemen, it is with great pleasure that I would like to confirm you that the Voter registration for the 2022 General election is now closed. I would also like to announce a huge record achievement received by my team. Yesterday, in just one day, we received 9,608 engagements from voters. With these 9,608 engagements that we have received, an estimate of 8,579 Fijians upgraded their VoterCard and about 1,029 new registrations were made.

We had over 61 venues in operation and the snap voter registration drive from last weekend until 7pm yesterday had yielded 11,980 engagements by the Fijian Elections Office. Out of these 11,980 voters, there were 1,219 new registrations and 10,761 had upgraded their VoterCards.

Ladies and gentlemen, we will be releasing provisional statistics on voter numbers in the next three-four days. You can check your itinerary for the exact date. Once we have the exact number, we will continue to prepare for the general election with that number.

With that being said, the Fijian Elections Office takes this opportunity to thank each and every supplier of building or business owners that allowed us to use the electricity, business or residential premises that gave us their private garage spaces or sheds for us to use any institution or organization or any person that has helped this exercise for the last four years.

On behalf of my team, I would like to sincerely thank you and appreciate your efforts in building the Voter Roll that we will be having for the 2022 General Election.

It will be remiss of me if I do not thank and mention each and every Voter Registration Official that have been working with us for the last four (4) years. They have endured the hardships of going on the ship, the hardships of going in rough weather. They have worked many kilometers to reach venues, they have stayed in torrential rain, they have stayed in the hot sun and sometimes in very cold.  They have stuck it out and delivered over 690,000 voters for the 2022 General election.

In October 2021, when we upgraded to the latest VoterCard and there were over 200,00 people that had the Blue-colored VoterCard. I am proud to say that my team has successfully engaged over 300,000 people since October 2021 and we now have the number at just over 85,000 Fijians are holding onto the Green-colored VoterCard. This is a huge effort by the team and to each and every one them dedicated their service to the country and to the Fijian Elections Office.

Lastly, ladies and gentlemen, with the Fijian Elections Office as we announce a major project has come to an end it is only the beginning of the next stage of another process. So I want to just take all the voters that came out in numbers. Even though it was last minute yesterday, voters rushed to the registration venues which shows that they have a high level of commitment and has huge interest in the politics of this country and they will decide who will govern the country for the next four years.

In that regard, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the staff of the Fijian Elections Office and the Electoral Commission, I’d like to sincerely thank each and every Fijian who has come and registered, updated or upgraded their VoterCard and may not have been happy with the way it happened. By this time in the third election, there would have been a lot of people who would have validly registered to the Blue VoterCard but disappeared because they’re now moved their address, or they have they’ve changed their details and they have not updated and on election day, much like yesterday, they will be the most disappointed people in the country. So to avoid the disappointment, that we’ve had to take the painstaking task of upgrading your card, asking that you expire your Green-colored VoterCard and come down to update your card update your details.

The fruits of this will be visible when you go to the polls on 14th of December with your Blue VoterCard which will show you where you will be voting. Your VoterCard confirms that you will be voting them. Your name will be in the list there and you will be able to vote. So on behalf of all the team, as the election management body of Fiji we’d like to thank the voters who came and updated their details before the poll. And now the biggest task remains. You have to come back one more time to vote.

Thank you!