News

Questions sent to Tabuya regarding ‘Rock the Vote’

September 24, 2022 12:10 pm

The Fijian Elections Office has written to People’s Alliance provisional candidate, Lynda Tabuya, asking her a barrage of questions directly in relation to “Rock the Vote Fiji’ and the “COVID-19 Maternity Fund’.

A similar set of questions has been sent to the People’s Alliance as the FEO has noted that there may be various provisions of the Electoral Act that are likely to be implicated, constituting a breach.

Supervisor of Elections Mohammed Saneem says the disappearance of the mentioned page is concerning and raises a few more questions.

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“We noted that ‘Rock the Vote Fiji’ has spent a considerable amount of money. They have hired buses, taken people across the boat, have hired venues and we are now making inquiries with individual owners of those items such as the bus companies, locations where the volleyball tournaments took place in terms of hire charges and who paid for it. Once we ascertained all this information, we will determine what the status is in terms of the law and what has been breached and we will refer it accordingly to FICAC.”

Saneem adds necessary steps have been taken, and this includes their independent investigation of beneficiaries of certain initiatives such as volleyball tournaments, and equipment handover, amongst others.

“Our inquiries will continue and if FICAC investigations start, they will continue to do it and we will refer whatever we have to FICAC for their continuation. There are significant complaints that we have dealt with and we have sent the complaints across to some of the individuals for a response as well so we can make a decision based on their response.”

People’s Alliance Deputy Leader Manoa Kamikamica in a press conference yesterday says that ‘Rock the Vote Fiji’ is not a party project.

“Rock the Vote I would like to make clear is not the project of the People’s Alliance but we applaud it since they are doing a civic duty to encourage our citizens to register to vote and then turn up to vote which is supporting the work of the elections office.”

The Supervisor of Elections claims that while “Rock the Vote Fiji” has vanished from Facebook, the FEO has already downloaded the page and is keeping records of posts that can be used as evidence.