Supervisor of Elections Mohammed Saneem (from left), People’s Alliance Party (PA) leader, Sitiveni Rabuka,

The Fijian Elections Office says following an evaluation of the complaint filed by The People’s Alliance, it has found that the FijiFirst has not breached Section 112 of the Electoral Act.

In a statement, this afternoon Supervisor of Elections Mohammed Saneem says the complaint was filed by The PA on July 15th and claimed they cited several breaches of campaign rules by FijiFirst.

They referred to 15 samples of campaign materials that the FijiFirst had posted on its Facebook page.

Saneem says upon receiving the complaint and in accordance with principles of natural justice, it was forwarded to FijiFirst for a response.

Saneem says a response was received today before the FEO evaluated the complaint, particularly the alleged breaches of section 112 of the Electoral Act, and considered the response by FijiFirst and the law.

He says the FEO noted that the People’s Alliance did not provide links or screenshots of the actual posts that carried the material complained about.

The FEO found that the fourteen samples that were attached to the complaint were published on FijiFirst’s Facebook page but they were not physically printed and distributed.

Saneem says Section 112 (1) (a) of the Electoral Act applies to printed material and therefore does not apply in this case.

He adds the distribution of the materials were only in electronic mode through FijiFirst’s Facebook page which meant that it did not cost anything and no payments would be involved.

The Supervisor of Election concluded that in this case, section 112(1)(b) of the Electoral Act 2014 is not applicable, there were no companies involved in the printing of the material which means section 112(1)(c) is not applicable and the date of issue of the material would be the date that the post was published.

In these circumstances, the date of the post would be regarded as the date of issue.

Saneem says the complaint appears to stem from a misconceived interpretation of the legal requirements and is therefore dismissed accordingly.