The counting of the legislative elections delayed by a technical anomaly
The legislative oppose the outgoing Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama, already in office for 16 years, and Sitiveni Rabuka, twice putschist.
At a polling station in the capital Suva on Wednesday.
AFP
The counting of Wednesday’s legislative elections in Fiji was delayed by a technical “anomaly” on Thursday, as Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama seeks to extend his sixteen years in office. His main rival Sitiveni Rabuka, twice putschist and nicknamed “Rambo”, was in the lead on Wednesday evening in the partial results when the count was interrupted.
Frank Bainimarama’s party, FijiFirst, had retaken the lead when the publication of partial results resumed four hours later. At a hastily organized press conference on Thursday morning, election supervisor Mohammed Saneem said an “anomaly” had been detected. He cited a “lag” between votes cast and a candidate’s tally.
“To remedy this situation, the Fijian electoral office had to review the whole mechanism by which we disseminate the results,” he said. The late night irregularity dominated news reports and was met with skepticism and anger on social media, but Mohammed Saneem defended the integrity of the tally. As of dawn on Thursday, the FijiFirst party held around 45% of the vote in more than half of the country’s 2,071 polling stations counted.
A call to the Fijian people to ‘stay calm’
Sitiveni Rabuka’s Popular Alliance and its coalition partner, the National Federation Party, together had just under 42% of the vote. The final count of the ballot was not expected for at least two days, due to the counting of votes on remote islands as well as a complex counting system. “I need to be convinced that this is the correct result. Even with the involvement of the courts,” Sitiveni Rabuka told AFP on Thursday. “We are in the process of examining our right of recourse”. Before adding: “Let’s not get carried away by what we assessed as an early victory yesterday” on Wednesday, before calling on “the Fijian people to remain calm, especially our supporters”. He had previously assured that he would concede defeat if beaten.
Seeking a third term, current head of government Frank Bainimarama, 68, came to power after a 2006 coup but then legitimized his position by winning elections in 2014 and 2018. Sitiveni Rabuka , 74, is a former military leader and former prime minister, nicknamed “Rambo” after staging two coups in 1987. He ruled the country from 1992 to 1999.
A “first test”
Asked whether he would accept the election results as he voted in the capital, Suva, Frank Bainimarama replied: “Of course”. He then attacked journalists, suggesting that they ask “better questions”.
For Blake Johnson of the Australian Institute of Political Strategy, any challenge to the results is likely to go to court rather than result in another coup. “If Rabuka wins, it will be Fiji’s first test of a peaceful transfer of power in almost two decades,” he told AFP on Wednesday. Fiji had two democratic elections in 2014 and 2018 after 35 years of instability marked by four coups.
A country of 900,000 inhabitants
The role of the army will be essential. Commander-in-Chief Jone Kalouniwai said his forces “honor the democratic process by respecting the outcome”. The results look tight, commentators say, after a campaign marred by suspicions of corruption, lawsuits and threats against journalists.
Sitiveni Rabuka, also a former rugby international, had indicated that if elected, his country could move away from China. He had told Australian channel SBS News that it was time for Fiji to “reassess our associations”, explicitly ruling out following the Solomon Islands in signing a security pact with Beijing. Fiji moved closer to China during the tenures of Frank Bainimarama, who applied the so-called “look North” policy to stabilize the economy, after heavy trade sanctions imposed on his country by Australia and New Zealand in retaliation for its 2006 coup.
The economy of Fiji, which has around 900,000 inhabitants, is highly dependent on tourism which has suffered from the Covid-19 pandemic.
AFP
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