Elections Supervisor Mohammed Saneem clarified that the Fijian Elections Office will hold workshops and meetings at any venue available to the FEO if larger venues are needed or when the FEO conference room is not available. is not available.

Saneem made the comments after Fiji Labor Party leader Mahendra Chaudhry asked why the Fiji Elections Office was holding the Electoral Processes Workshop for Political Parties in the Attorney General’s Conference Room at Level 9 Suvavou House last Thursday.

Chaudhry had said in a statement last Wednesday that Attorney General and Minister of Elections Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum was also the secretary general of FijiFirst.

He added that the Fijian Electoral Board should be seen as standing at arm’s length from the incumbent government.

However, Saneem told a press conference yesterday that there are many other offices in Suvavou House.

He asks what was the urge to simply ask the question that this is where the Attorney General’s office is.

The supervisor also asks what the rush was and why fijivillage sent in the questions at 3pm last Wednesday and immediately posted Chaudhry’s story on the fijivillage website.

Fijivillage had sent questions to FEO Communications and Saneem for comment at 3 p.m. last Wednesday after the concerns were raised in the FLP statement. We then received an email indicating that our email questions had been received. A follow-up call was also made to FEO’s communications team and we were told that the email had been received by the PR manager. We then said that we were waiting for the answer because the FLP had said that the meeting was scheduled for the next day.

The story was not immediately released.

No response came and the story then ran at 5.05pm last Wednesday as the meeting was scheduled for last Thursday saying the concerns had been raised by the FLP and we were still awaiting a response from the OEM.

Saneem also called on fijivillage to come out and clarify where a photo of the election supervisor shaking hands with the attorney general was taken during the 2018 general election.

Fijivillage reported at the time that the general secretary of FijiFirst had come to the National Results Center to observe how things were progressing. He had shaken hands with the supervisor outside the center and then walked to the Results Center where other party representatives were also observing the process.

The images were taken by our 2018 election film crew.

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