Apenisa Waqairadovu 
[Photo: File]
The Centre for Democracy and Dialogue says Fiji should not criminalise legitimate election research.
Executive Director Nilesh Lal says current electoral laws can expose people conducting election-related research to criminal sanctions.
He says CDD recently submitted its methodology for an opinion poll to the Electoral Commission, but a lengthy response delayed its efforts to conduct the research during the campaign period.
“You can be imprisoned for conducting election research in Fiji. And how preposterous is that? Nowhere in the world, in liberal democracies, you get jailed for conducting legitimate election research.”
Lal is calling for Section 110A of the Electoral Act to be repealed and replaced with a system focused on transparency.
