Allowing businesses to operate half-day is reasonable for higher turnout at polling centres - Batiweti

Fiji Commerce and Employers Federation Chief Executive Officer Kameli Batiweti says it is a reasonable request by the Supervisor of Elections Mohammed Saneem for businesses to open half day on election day next Wednesday.

He says the whole intention is to ensure a higher turnout at the polling centres so that a higher number of Fijians vote on election day.

Batiweti says the businesses may have their own ideas on how to address this issue, but everyone’s interest is the same, and that is to have a higher turnout at the polling centres.

He urges employers and workers to heed the suggestion that the Supervisor of Elections has made as the SOE has the statistics for the previous elections and therefore, he is using his experience with the previous elections to urge all Fijians to make time to go to their respective polling station to cast their vote.

Supervisor of Elections, Mohammed Saneem is requesting business owners to open half day on election day and is appealing to all Fijians to turn up and cast their vote on election day as the Fijian Elections Office is concerned that the voter turnout for the 2022 general elections could be as low as 50 percent.

While speaking on fijivillage Straight Talk with Vijay Narayan, Saneem says in 2018, they received about 11,000 postal vote applications, and this year there was a drop of 22 percent.