Supervisor of Elections, Mohammed Saneem says Australian media company, ABC has dug in too far when they started to question whether the election will be free and fair simply because the reporter did not see the response from the Fijian Elections Office.
Sameem has highlighted this while responding to an article by ABC on 8th July that says the concerns of Fijian seasonal workers in the interior parts of Australia who could not come to the allocated voter registration venues due to the long distance.
The article says ABC has contacted the Fijian Elections Office for comment.
The Supervisor says the reporter from ABC failed to take into account the response from FEO in which they had clearly sent to the reporter the link to the video of the press conference with the local media explaining the overseas registration drive and how the information was being disseminated.
Saneem says the overseas media will be quick to jump to these conclusions because it suits a narrative that the Pacific cannot have a free and fair elections but it was very well reported by the local media when explaining the overseas registration drive and the steps taken by the FEO to reach out as many voters overseas as possible.
The Supervisor says for them to cast a wide range of allegation that the election will not be free and fair shows the level of interest they have when it comes to finding out actual facts.
He says they have had some cases where the local communities came to the Office too late and it would have cost them $15,000 to $30,000 to send teams to those areas because these areas are not easy to reach.
The voter registration drive has concluded in Australia, New Zealand and Canada.
We are in the process of sending questions to ABC.
