Smith-Johns hopes public can make informed decisions despite a muzzled media....

Smith-Johns hopes that journalists use their investigative skills to inform the public about the background of all candidates and their achievements (good and bad) so that the public can make an informed decision as to who will serve them best..... Really?  Will this apply to Bainimarama and Khaiyum too?  Not likely.  

The world already knows that there is no media freedom in Fiji and that saying anything negative about any member of the opposition is celebrated by Bainimarama and Khaiyum.  But, just try and mention anything negative about Bainimarama and Khaiyum, or one of their pets, or their dictatorship and you will end up loosing your job or get beaten up by thugs and loose your job, or the company that you work for will be threatened with having its business licence revoked.

This is more rhetoric and fancy talk that does not reflect reality, especially when it comes to reporting on the illegal and brutal Bainimarama and Khaiyum dictatorship. 

Bainimarama and Khaiyum have been lying to the people of Fiji, and in their faces too!  So now journalists are to report on both their negative aspects as well as the so-called good work that they have been lying about to the people.  Not to mention, the details of the so-called good work that Bainimarama and Khaiyum have done since the 2006 coup can never be questioned.  Even the auditor general's reports have been locked away in secrecy or they have already been burnt. 

But the reality is visible for everyone to see, but they can not ask any questions about them.  The reality of Bainimarama and Khaiyum's dictatorship is:

• Fiji's economy is at its worst ever since independence
• Fiji's national debt is at its highest ever   
• the Fiji dollar has been devalued
• corruption is at its highest levels ever (more than any previous Govt)
  
• unemployment, crime, rape, suicide, prostitution and poverty are at all time highs
• there is no rule of law and the courts are not independent
• there is no freedom of speech 
• there is no transparency (just lots of mentioning of transparency without actually applying it)  
• pensions have been halved while Bainimarama and Khaiyum pay themselves multiple salaries and perks estimated to be in the millions

• there have been lots of beatings, murder and intimidation.

So what is the promiscuous PS Sharon Smith-Johns actually talking about here?  Is it that journalists have been one-sided in their reporting because of beatings, threats and intimidation by Khaiyum's thugs or is she indirectly threatening journalists and the media in Fiji, or is it that the Bainimarama dictatorship will actually allow truly free and unrestricted reporting for the elections?.....yeah right !