6 nominations from 4 political parties have been disqualified by the Fijian Elections Office.
This has been confirmed by the Supervisor of Elections, Mohammed Saneem who has also confirmed that the Elections Office has so far received candidate nominations from 4 political parties.
The nomination period for political party candidates for next month's general elections close at midday today.
Saneem says one candidate nomination from the FijiFirst Party, one from National Federation Party and one from SODELPA have not been approved while 3 candidate nominations from the Fiji Labour Party have not been approved.
It was earlier confirmed that Naziah Ali’s candidacy for the 2018 general elections was disqualified due to her not being in the country for the period of 18 months out of the two years immediately preceding the Writ.
Saneem says SODELPA provisional candidate, Adi Narayan’s nomination has not been approved on the basis of non confirmation of his status, as it currently appears that he has dual citizenship.
The Supervisor of Elections has also confirmed that National Federation Party provisional candidate Feroz Mohammed was out of the country for a total of 222 days, and as a result did not meet the requirements set out in the Electoral Act, hence he has also been disqualified.
Saneem says the Fijian Elections Office upon processing the candidate nominations handed in by the Fiji Labour Party has disqualified three of their nominations as they have been found to have prior criminal convictions that disqualifies them under the Electoral Act.
Saneem has added that parties have time till midday today to nominate candidates to replace those whose applications have been disqualified.
Appeal on the reconsideration on the nomination can be done tomorrow.
Fiji Labour Party’s Provisional Candidates Leader, Aman Ravindra Singh says he is aware that three of the party’s provisional candidates have been disqualified however he says he is not aware of the details.
He says he will come to the capital city today and read the letter issued to the party by the Supervisor of Elections.
Singh has also confirmed that he will submit three other nominations today.
We have also spoken to National Federation Party Leader, Professor Biman Prasad who says he is aware of the disqualified candidate nomination, and he has also confirmed that they will be filing another nomination by today.
We are still trying to speak to SODELPA.
FijiFirst has already confirmed that they will file another nomination after the disqualification of Lisi Naziah Tora Ali.
