Supervisor of Elections Mohammed Saneem [left] and Hope Party leader Tupou Draunidalo

The Fijian Elections Office has once again taken a swipe at politicians who are deliberately misinforming the public on social media.

Speaking at the launch of the FEO’s 2020 – 2023 Strategic Plan, Supervisor of Elections Mohammed Saneem says Fiji suffers from engineered distrust and deliberate misinformation used by some in the Fijian political scene.

Saneem says the electoral process speaks for itself and FEO will always ensure verifiability.

“There is very little effort made by other actors to either clarify or correct or even critic these actions, that is why the FEO has adapted the accounting term verifiability to apply to elections in Fiji as standard, verifiability would be what you call transparency 2.0.”

Hope Party leader Tupou Draunidalo says politicians spreading lies about the election process was evident in the last election.

Draunidalo says the misinformation given to the public is a major contributing factor towards the poor turnout of voters.

“It’s inappropriate for any party to spread this lies and misinformation and you know we’ve all paid the price in the election results last year, a big number 28% almost 30% almost didn’t vote and that affected all parties and I think that’s the Fijian people telling they don’t want to hear inflammatory things.”

Meanwhile, FEO has stated they will continue to verify election processes to all political parties and at the same time register eligible Fijians to vote for the next general election.