SODELPA provisional candidate, Tomasi Vakatora, said he left Unity Fiji because party leader, Savenaca Narube, was very secretive and did not engage in consulting members.

He claimed that Mr Narube operated as a one-man show. Mr Vakatora had moved to Unity Fiji in the 2018 General Election.

Early this he moved back to SODELPA.

He told FijiSun that he did not know how Mr Narube would run a government with his type of attitude.

It was not appropriate for political leadership at national level.

In response, Mr Narube said he did not wish to comment because those were Mr Vakatora’s personal views.

Unity Fiji and SODELPA signed a memorandum of understanding in July to work in partnership in this year’s election.

Claims

Mr Vakatora claimed that since the party was registered in 2017, there had been no annual general meetings until April this year contrary to requirements under its constitution.

He said for over two years there were no regular board meetings held until late last year and no monthly financial accounts were prepared and submitted to the board.

“To me these showed lack of accountability and transparency by the party leadership and does not align with claims that its leadership is the best for Fiji,” he said.

“Some of us spent a lot of our time and money to promote the party but we’re marginalised by the leadership for some unknown reasons,” he said.

He said Unity Fiji would remain a small party playing only in the periphery and standing in the way of bigger parties like SODELPA forming Government.

“I had extreme doubts that Unity could gather enough votes to meet or exceed the threshold of five percent of total votes to gain seats in Parliament.”

“It will split the votes at a time when the overwhelming desire of voters in Fiji is for opposition parties in Fiji to unite to defeat FijiFirst.”

“I want opposition parties to unite, to merge into one and take on FijiFirst.”

“There are too many parties, nine altogether.”

“If they don’t work together as one then Fiji First will win the election again. Unity and other small parties should join up with SODELPA to defeat Fiji First.”

“SODELPA is an established party with a support base and a branch network that makes it the obvious choice for other opposition parties to console under,” he said.

He said differences within SODELPA are now a thing of the past because most of the destabilised have left for People’s Alliance.

Feedback: nacanieli@fijisun.com.fj