Meeting with Political Parties

Meeting with Political Parties

18 March 2022 at 2pm

FEO Conference Room

 

Bula Vinaka ladies and gentlemen,

I thank you so much for attending this meeting.

I am here on behalf of the Electoral Commission and on the invitation of the Supervisor of Elections, I have agreed to join this meeting and co-chair with the Supervisor of Elections.

First and foremost, may I take this opportunity to once again, reintroduce myself, my name is Mukesh Nand and I am a legal practitioner. I have been practicing in Suva for over 18 years. And I am very very privileged and honored to be undertaking this role, as we go towards the 2022 election.

Ladies and gentlemen, as you are all aware, since I have just started recently, I am still in the process of understanding and getting familiar with the processes in elections.

But so far from what I have seen, I am confident that the process is directly similar to the 2018 process and based on the findings of the Observers in the 2018 General Election, I am confident that the planning and the preparations for this election are on par to deliver another fair and credible election, proudly representing the will of the Fijian people in accordance with the law. The Electoral Commission fully supports the activities of the Fijian Elections Office in this regard.

Ladies and gentlemen, I will be very much interested to see the demonstration by the Fijian Elections Office to the political party today, as I am of the view that it is absolutely necessary for the Fijian Elections Office to demonstrate various aspects of its election processes so that political parties and ordinary members of the public are able to visualize it, understand it and at the same time build ownership around it.

I want to also add another point to the discussion, ladies and gentlemen, and that is to do with misinformation. The Electoral Commission has lately noticed that there is a series of publications which contain several misinformation and we would like to just remind political parties to ensure that when they publish about elections, they publish information that is accurate and reliable. So that it does not end up being a misinformation and misleads voters.

The General Election is a process in which we are all stakeholders and it is necessary that we respect each other and we respect the process so as to allow it to realize people’s constitutional right in the running of the country.

Ladies and Gentlemen, that is my advice to you all and I would like to hand over to the Supervisor of Elections to continue the meeting. I will be present in the meeting. Should you need any clarification from the Electoral Commission in any regard.

Thank you

Vinaka Vakalevu

Dhanyavad