Electoral Commission Chairperson Suresh Chandra has confirmed that 19 recommendations of the 38 recommendations from the Multi-national Observer Group have either been implemented or are in the process of being implemented.

“The Commission believes that the recommendations which we have adopted or adapted into the electoral framework are good tweaks to the system,” Mr Chandra said.

“We must not forget that the Multi-national Observer Group in their report had already highlighted that the legal framework in place in Fiji, is already sufficient for the holding of credible elections and therefore we believe we just need to keep tweaking the system so that it keeps reacting to the environment we are in.”

Meanwhile the Fijian Elections Office has divided the country into administration areas to allow more effective management of logistics surrounding elections as well as all the other processes which are involved and this Centre will look after the southernmost part of Vanua Levu.

“My Commissioners and I were appointed in February 2017 and we had some initial tasks at hand and some of them which I would like to list for you now are firstly,” he said.

“My Commission had to deal with the constitutional requirements to determine the total number of seats for the next General Election and as you are aware, we have added based on the figures received by us, we have decided that the number of seats for the next General Election will be 51.

Following that as you would also be aware, the Commission was required to deal with the Multi-national Observer Group report and various other submissions that were made regarding the electoral framework in Fiji.

We worked on this and in late June you would be aware, that the Commission made its position known to the whole country on each of those reports.”

Edited by Karalaini Waqanidrola

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