Presiding Officers For Polling Station Given Stern Advice
‘You have to commit yourself to becoming the election official to ensuring that you’re apolitical.’
Wednesday 20 April 2022 | 14:15
Supervisor of Elections, Mohammed Saneem has urged all training Presiding Officers to avoid the hassle of being asked to leave a polling station.
Mr Saneem’s recalled how in 2018, a full set of staff at a polling station were replaced because they apparently made a political post on social media on the day of the elections.
He warned Presiding Officers that conditions were still in place if rules were not followed.
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He encouraged all officers to always follow all procedures.
“You have to commit yourself to becoming the election official to ensuring that you’re apolitical,” Mr Saneem said.
“Let us not have a situation where someone has made a big wide Facebook post today about a particular political interest.
“And then six months later, this person is standing in the polling station in the purple uniform as a Presiding Officer.
“That is a situation staff of the Fijian Elections Office have to completely avoid.
“You can have your political interest, but you cannot express it now because you are going to be calling place managers and that is the absolute critical rule of taking up this job, you cannot hold yourself out politically.
“In 2018, we replaced staff from an entire polling station simply because in the morning of the election, there was a social media post by them, which we regarded was not apolitical, we will do that again.”
Mr Saneem advised participants to be polite to all voters at the polling stations during the 2022 General Election.
