Corruption and fraud in Fiji's electoral process - Corrupt referee

Professor Narsey highlights the corruption and fraud in Fiji's electoral process being controlled by the FijiFirst Party that is also standing for elections!

Prof Narsey writes that a fair game of rugby is not being played in Fiji's electoral process!  Two teams FFP (Fiji Football Players) and NFP (National Football Players) have just fielded their players on the field, in an all-important game that is taking place after eight years.

Just as the game is about to begin, the referee, who is also a player from the FFP team, cunningly announces a change of rules: any player who has been away overseas for more than 18 months in the previous 2 years, will not be allowed to play.

This referee, [Khaiyum, who is also the General Secretary for the opposing FijiFirst Party] claims to be neutral, then pulls out his red card, and sends three members of the more skillful members of the opposing NFP Team packing to the side lines, because they have previously been away overseas for training with better quality teams than available in Fiji.  The red card is not applied to any players who have been sent overseas by government, which the FFP has been controlling for eight years.  Is this a fair rugby game? NO!

Khaiyum advises NGOs like the Citizens Constitutional Forum to not play “Mickey Mouse games” before the elections (Fiji Sun, 5 August 2014).  The public should consider that:

• (a) The Bainimarama Government has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars of taxpayers money encouraging the voter registration of Fiji citizens living overseas so that they can have a say in electing some candidate for the parliament, even if they have Permanent Residency of and presumably some commitment to other countries.
  
• (b) Civil servants, even if they have been out of the country for the last two years “on government business”, may still be eligible as candidates for the elections, and may even belong to political parties, according to the Permanent Secretary of the PSC.
  
• (c) BUT an ordinary Fiji citizen, like Ms Makareta Waqavonovono, a former Legal Aid and committed senior Fiji government official, who has been overseas for more than 18 months out of the last two years, is declared legally ineligible to be a candidate by a sudden last minute change of the law on the 31st of July 2014, just a month before the elections, after Ms Waqavonovono has already been announced as a candidate by the National Federation Party.

Click HERE to read Prof Narsey's full article.