The Fijian Elections Office is concerned with the amount of postal voter applications received so far.

Supervisor of Elections Mohammed Saneem says they expected around 23,000 applications from registered voters, however, they have received only 4,303.

Saneem has flagged that there is a potential for low turnout in the postal voting because people have not applied.

“Now how does this get resolved, we start with the media whom we are 100 percent confident will be working on Election Day. If by Tuesday 100 percent of the 360 media personnel whom we have records of complete applying for a postal ballot that’s a positive sign. Secondly, all those people working in the medical sector they need to apply for a postal ballot immediately. There will be no polling stations in the hospitals.”

Saneem says of the 4,303 applications received, 4,246 have been approved.

“There are three applications from UAE, 400 applications from Australia, 3202 applications from Fiji, 249 from New Zealand, 258 from the United States and 134 from various other countries.”

He adds that 901 parcels have been dispatched and two people have voted.

Application will close on 5pm on 23rd of November (Wednesday).

Meanwhile, the SOE during the press conference yesterday mentioned that there is one particular candidate from the Fiji Labour Party that has been actively making false statement and they will issue that person with some notices and if the statements are not out, then FEO will have to take necessary action against the person.