Comments made by opposition that FijiFirst won 2018 general elections by 147 votes is incorrect - Sayed-Khaiyum

Acting Prime Minister Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum says comments being made by the opposition that FijiFirst won the 2018 general elections by 147 votes is incorrect.

Sayed-Khaiyum says 273,000 Fijian voters rejected SODELPA in the 2018 general elections while approximately 420,000 voters rejected the National Federation Party.

Sayed-Khaiyum says if the voter turnout was higher or similar to 2014, especially in the western and central divisions, FijiFirst would have got more than 30 seats.

He says SODELPA should not celebrate or perhaps they have the rain to thank.

The Acting Prime Minister also spoke about the results in the 2001 general elections where SDL received only 26 percent of the total votes while SDL received 44.6 percent of the total votes in the 2006 general elections where they won by one seat.

Sayed-Khaiyum says the opposition is not telling people that voter turnout in 2006 was 64 percent. He says they are now claiming that 70 percent is too low notwithstanding the rain. 

The Acting Prime Minister says the opposition is also not  telling people that voter turnout in the 2014 general elections was 84 percent and invalid votes was 0.7 percent in 2014 and 0.9 percent in 2018.

Sayed-Khaiyum says in the 2006 and 2001 elections, invalid votes were 9 percent and 10 percent respectively.