FEO will need to have humility – Acting Supervisor of Elections

As the Fijian Elections Office starts consultations on its Strategic Plan for 2024-2027, Acting Supervisor of Elections Ana Mataiciwa says the FEO will need to have humility, look at what they did wrong in the previous general elections and try to improve it through a consultative approach with their stakeholders.

Mataiciwa says the FEO has been reactive previously but they want to work with their stakeholders.

She says she is glad the media and the civil society organisations are part of the consultation and working together for the next general election instead of how they did things previously.

Fiji Women’s Rights Movement Executive Director Nalini Singh says while raising voter awareness around the country, they found that the confidence in the FEO was really low because of complex processes, the hasty way the rules and regulations were changing, the attitude from the Office that was being exuded by the leadership, the communications were complex and this was not motivating.

She says half the population of voters are women and their numbers are diminishing.

Singh asks what can be done to improve that.

The Executive Director says they hope that when they move forward with the next strategic plan for the Fijian Elections Office, all the tenets that are defined in the principles are being actually articulated in the processes.

Singh says this means simplifying the communications, being a lot more people friendly and looking at the next elections as a process where everybody is moving along and there is an improvement in voter turnout.

fijivillage News Director, Vijay Narayan says he is part of the consultation to ensure that the foundations of a true democracy are established starting with the people of our nation getting all the information in a timely, effective and efficient manner so that they can make their decisions when they go to the polls.

He says the dissemination of information was not coming in the build up to the last elections as effectively and efficiently as expected and several questions were asked of the FEO.

Narayan also says the FEO needs to always be independent, and understand that they are accountable to the people.

Fiji Council of Social Services Knowledge Management Officer Josaia Tokoni says they hope there is increased participation, voters are making an informed decision when voting and have confidence in the person they are voting for.

Meanwhile, Mataiciwa says the Multinational Observer Group has also highlighted some issues raised by participants particularly the restrictiveness that was on the media and the issues relating to the voter card.

She says this is something that they will look at while reviewing the electoral laws.