Supervisor of Elections, Mohammed Saneem says when an election turns into racist comments and hate speech, that is when you start to see people lose interest in the elections and if there is a person politically motivated to ensure his or her political party wants to win, they need to now re-look at their strategy because they do not want to win with only 40 percent voter turnout.
While speaking on fijivillage Straight Talk with Vijay Narayan, Saneem says it is in everybody’s interest that the turnout is over 80 percent.
He says if you are thinking about it in this direction then it is your best interest to stop with all this and focus on winning the election by having maximum turnout.
He says when it comes to hate speech, the damage it will do is not only during the election time.
He adds let the campaign not become so bad that it damages the fabric of the society.
Saneem says according to the law, people can be prosecuted and people have been sent to FICAC for prosecution and they have managed to identify a lot of fake account holders who have been reported to FICAC.
He says the FEO is keeping a very strict eye and Facebook – Meta is working very closely with the FEO in these areas.
Saneem says the Facebook page One Mind One Goal has been closed by Facebook which has brought relief to so many thousands of Fijians.
He adds if there is a page or person that is repeatedly doing this then they you can report them to the FEO.
