National Federation Party Leader, Professor Biman Prasad confirms the NFP has filed a complaint with the Fijian Elections Office regarding FijiFirst allegedly using the Government Facebook Page for electioneering
Prasad says quite deliberately, the Fijian Government Facebook page has the Attorney General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum’s comments from the 9th September press conference, spliced with an out of context quote.
He says Sayed-Khaiyum accused him of saying “Politicians can offer the moon, so what?”
Prasad says this is a blatant lie.
While quoting the Hansard for proceedings in Parliament on 29th August, Prasad says he had said yes, political parties offer the moon sometimes but it is not for him or for the Government or the Supervisor of Elections or someone in the Electoral Commission to ask and tell them how they are going to do it.
He had said it is for the people whether they want to believe it or not.
Professor Prasad said that is an example of a stupid law that this Government has put in place to punish the Opposition.
The NFP Leader says he was absolutely clear that it is not for the Ministry of Economy, Supervisor of Elections and the Electoral Commission to judge promises and policies of political parties because there isn’t a qualified independent body to make financial assessments in Fiji unlike Australia, which has a parliamentary budget office.
He says Sayed-Khaiyum’s political attack is a false statement contrary to his own electoral laws and to make it worse, it is on the Government Facebook page; not the FijiFirst page.
Prasad asks why can’t FijiFirst publish everything political on its own Facebook page or is it because nobody goes to that page.
He says this Government, which passes almost all its laws under Standing Order 51 in a few days or even overnight, has done nothing about the Code of Conduct and Freedom of Information laws, which have been gathering dust for more than 3 years.
He says there is no Code of Conduct governing how our leaders must behave and there is no Freedom of Information legislation to allow people to have access to information on how their government works for them.
Prasad add in the absence of the Code of Conduct, no Accountability and Transparency Commission has been established, even though the Constitution requires it.
When contacted, Supervisor of Elections, Mohammed Saneem confirms they have received a complaint from NFP.
Saneem says they are dealing with it under normal procedures for complaints and will not make further comments on the matter.
We have sent questions to Minister for Economy and the General Secretary of the FijiFirst Party, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum. He is yet to respond.
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