The application for the party registration for the Proposed ‘FijiansFirst’ has been rejected.
Registrar of Political Parties, Ana Mataiciwa confirms that objections were received from the National Federation Party and the People’s Alliance.
The objections were mainly around the unauthorised use of the coat of arms in the symbol of the proposed party, the symbol being similar to the symbol used by FijiFirst, the name FijiansFirst nearly resembling the deregistered FijiFirst, and the acronym of the proposed party may likely be FFP which is associated with FijiFirst.
Mataiciwa says based on NFP and the People’s Alliance's objections on similarity between the proposed name FijiansFirst and FijiFirst, she finds that the proposed name so nearly resembles that of the deregistered party “FijiFirst” as to be likely to be confused with or mistaken for that party within the meaning of section 8 the Political Parties (Registration, Conduct, Funding and Disclosures) Act 2013.
The Proposed FijiansFirst may appeal the Electoral Commission within 14 days.
The people associated with the Proposed FijiansFirst were Opposition MP, Ketan Lal and former FijiFirst Vice President Ravindran Kumaran.
Kumaran had refused to make any comments when fijivillage News had approached him on who are the people behind the planned set up of the proposed party.