Fiji election head defends polls from critics

The head of Fiji's election management body has taken a swipe at those who have tried to "discredit" elections, and says broad acceptance of the outcomes of the past two polls answers those critics.

The Election Supervisor, Mohammed Saneem, said a cross-section of people have claimed the electoral process is flawed.

"If you look at the 2014 and 2018 elections, you will notice that there has been massive attempts to discredit the process, to try and bring disrepute to the process, struggling attempts to try and bring disrepute to the Fijian Elections Office," he Saneem.

Saneem said the criticism did not only come from political parties.

"Academia trying to bring in far-fetched research material, legal people trying to bring in interpretations of the law that best suits whatever is the current political preference, right down to attempts to even claim make claims about things like ballot boxes lending from China and so on.

"The greatest advantage when it comes to these challenges is that ultimately people believe in the outcome of the election."

Saneem told people present at the dialogue organised by the University of the South Pacific's student association that "I'm not here to make friends."

"My job is to run the elections. If I wanted to make friends, I'd be a Tik Toker."

Saneem was speaking at a first-of-its-kind intergenerational talanoa on democracy and elections in Suva, sharing a panel with the University's head of department of law and social sciences, Professor Sandra Tarte, and youth activist, Alanieta Atama.

Raising turnout among the young

Addressing concerns regarding low youth voter turnout in the last two elections, Saneem said increasing young people's participation at the elections will require people to speak to issues that concern them.

He said the "textbook answers" on what young people who are 19 or 20 years old want from an election is not the solution.

"If we are looking at trying to improve the youth participation in the election, we need to talk about things that matter to the youth," he said.

But for young women, they want to see more female leaders from their communities who can stand up and contest the elections, Atama said.

Atama said some women do not want other women to lead and some men are hesitant to vote for women to get into parliament.

She said with half the of the country's population made up of women, there needs to be equal representation of women in parliament.

"It is true at the age of 18 young people involved in Tik Tok and other social media platforms," she said.

"But I always encourage everything starts at home. As parents, we need to start building our children at that age 18 to 20 to know why is it important to vote, and especially for young girls."

Best system for women candidates, says Saneem

Saneem said Fiji had the best electoral system to get more women in parliament.

Experts have described Fiji's electoral system as a "rockstar system" which allows for a popular candidate to collect the bulk of the votes to carry their supporting candidates who get few votes become parliamentarians.

Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama has been successful in carrying his party candidates in the previous elections, collecting 36 percent of the total votes cast, to lead a majority government both in 2014 and 2018.

"It is the best system to get as many women, youth, persons with disability, and any kind of advocacy group into parliament because it is a popular system," Saneem said.

He believes having a "quota system" to get women in parliament, which is used in some countries is "backfiring".

"So, you want to have more women in parliament this is the system. You don't even need quotas in Fiji. You don't even need to fix the number of seats to say 'X number of seats of females, no'," he said.

A total of 693,915 Fijians have registered for the election which takes place on December 14.