Claims made by Saneem that the report by International IDEA was not compiled in an independent and apolitical manner is baseless - Chaudhry

Fiji Labour Party Leader Mahendra Chaudhry says claims made by the Registrar of Political Parties Mohammed Saneem that International IDEA’s report was not compiled in an apolitical and independent manner is baseless however Saneem says the comments made by Chaudhry directly proves the Fijian Elections Office contention that the report is a record of the political parties' commentary on the political finance framework.

In a statement, Chaudhry says Saneem has also denied receiving a draft copy of the report by International IDEA which was compiled in cooperation with Dialogue Fiji.

He says the report is an excellent analysis of the extremely repressive nature of the legislation governing the financing of political parties.

Chaudhry says it exposes the powerful role of Saneem as the Registrar of Political Parties and Supervisor of Elections and there is the additional role he meets as Secretary to the Electoral Commission.

The FLP Leader says there is an obvious conflict of interest here compromising the independence of the Office of the Supervisor of Elections as well as that of the Electoral Commission.

Chaudhry claims Saneem was handpicked for the Supervisor of Elections position by the Attorney General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum in 2013 when he was not qualified for the job.

He says the Attorney General also happens to be the Secretary General of the FijiFirst.

He has questioned if this is the reason why Saneem decided not to investigate the millions of dollars in donations to the FijiFirst Party given by the directors and senior executives of corporate organizations, their spouses and families.

Chaudhry adds the details of the donors were published as late as 2020 although most of it was collected years before the publication date.

Chaudhry has also questioned Saneem why this crucial information was withheld for so long from the public eye.

In his response, Saneem says they had noticed that the report has directly reflected Chaudhry’s comments already.

Saneem says this shows that the report is not apolitical in nature and was not done objectively.