Supervisor of Elections Ana Mataiciwa on fijivillage Straight Talk with Vijay Narayan

The FijiFirst Party has been given time until the 28th of June to amend their constitution and if this is not followed, the Fijian Elections Office will deregister the party under the Political Parties Act.

Supervisor of Elections, Ana Mataiciwa highlighted this during fijivillage Straight Talk with Vijay Narayan when questioned about the issues raised by FijiFirst MP Mosese Bulitavu saying there is no grievance procedure in the party constitution for the MPs in disputes and the party leadership committee is incomplete as the Opposition Leader is not part of the committee although that is a party requirement.

Mataiciwa says if the amendments are not made to the FijiFirst constitution, they will give a notice to deregister the party.

When asked on what will happen to the FijiFirst Members of Parliament if the party gets deregistered, Mataiciwa says the law states that they will continue as independent MPs as they were elected by the people.

Meanwhile, Mataiciwa says that former Prime Minister, Voreqe Bainimarama has been notified that he will be removed from the National Registrar of Voters and 14 days is given to him to respond which will end next Thursday.

She says that Section 5 of the Political Parties Act states that a person convicted of an offence and sentenced to 12 months imprisonment gets disqualified.

Registrar of Political Parties, Ana Mataiciwa maintains that the notice issued to the FijiFirst Party on 30th May 2024, giving the party until 4pm on 28th June 2024 to amend the constitution still stands.

Mataiciwa reiterates that under the Political Parties (Registration, Conduct, Funding and Disclosures) Act, she does not have any intervening powers to the filling of positions in a party or overall management of affairs but will only intervene if a party has breached the Act.

Mataiciwa confirms receiving resignation letters from some FijiFirst party members and office holders today.

She confirms that Voreqe Bainimarama has resigned as the founding member, Leader and Member of FijiFirst, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum has resigned as Foundation Member and Member of the party, Ratu Joji Satakala has resigned as President and Member, Selai Adimaitoga as Vice President and Member, Ravindran Kumaran as Vice President and Member, Shailesh Kumar as Foundation Member and Member, and Faiyaz Koya as Acting General Secretary and Registered Officer of the party and Hem Chand as Acting Treasurer of the FijiFirst.

Mataiciwa says further questions relating to the party must be addressed to the FijiFirst who under the law have the liberty to function themselves according to their party constitution without interference from the Registrar.

We have contacted the Leader of the Opposition, Inia Seruiratu. He is yet to respond.

Supervisor of Elections, Ana Mataiciwa says they have not received any update from the former Attorney General, Siromi Turaga and the Solicitor General’s Office on the update of the review of electoral laws.

The Supervisor of Elections highlighted this during fijivillage Straight Talk with Vijay Narayan when asked about the proposed electoral law changes and the update.

The Supervisor of Elections says just like the glitch issue they have been following up on the electoral laws with the Solicitor General’s Office and the former Attorney General as they were informed about the Cabinet decision to review the electoral laws.

Mataiciwa says they have not received any feedback from them yet.

She says there are a lot of repercussions when amendments are rushed as stakeholders who need to adhere to these laws get confused and they have seen what happened in the previous General Elections and they do not want that to be a re-occurrence for the upcoming elections.

When questioned if changes will be proposed for the declaration of assets and liabilities of parties, officials and candidates to be published like the past which was changed through Standing Order 51 before the 2022 elections, she responded that there is a review coming up and it could be an opportunity for the stakeholders to make submissions.

After the law change before the general elections, the declarations are not published for the people to see, and they have to pay a fee to only view the documents, not get a copy or even a photo of the declaration.

When asked about SOE’s stand on the additional powers that included the searching of documents relating to electoral matters before the 2022 elections, she says some powers are relevant while some are not.

Mataiciwa agrees some powers are with FICAC to investigate matters and there is no need to duplicate the powers.

She also says Section 110 of the Political Parties Act had introduced that people who intended to publish opinion polls had to comply with certain guidelines issued by the Electoral Commission.

Mataiciwa says the Multinational Observer Group had also picked on this in their report and they had observed that Section 110 had raised concerns from civil society, organisations, media and universities as it restrained their participation in the election.

She adds that they will look at some of the provisions if it benefits the users and it allow them to reflect on the provisions that were removed or amended where they want stakeholders to be included in the process.

Mataiciwa hopes the process will start soon.

You can watch the full Straight Talk interview on our website, fijvillage.

Supervisor of Elections, Ana Mataiciwa says earlier comments by former FijiFirst General Secretary, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum that she has been targeting the FijiFirst when taking certain actions against the party, are just nonsense.

While speaking on fijivillage Straight Talk With Vijay Narayan, the Supervisor says she has referred a number of complaints of many people from different parties, and she is only following the law.

When asked on the issue of having proper Annual General Meetings, Mataiciwa says the FijiFirst also has to have AGMs in a transparent and democratic manner.

She says she is waiting for June 28th as the party has to fulfill the requirements of the Political Parties Act.

Mataiciwa adds that the FijiFirst constitution does not have a grievance process in place as required for under the Act.

She says the notice has been given to the party to amend their constitution, and the requirement is to adhere to the law or they will be deregistered.

Mataiciwa adds that Voreqe Bainimarama has to respond to their letter by next Thursday as they have informed him that after his conviction and sentence of 12 months imprisonment, his name has to be struck off from the National Voters Register.

She also says the definition of an office holder also includes party leader as stated in the case between the State and Sitiveni Rabuka, and this means that if you are serving a 12 months sentence or more, you are not eligible to be a party office holder.

Supervisor of Elections Ana Mataiciwa moved into her new role as Acting SOE on the 26th of January after holding the post of the Manager Legal and she knew from the get-go that she had to mend the burnt bridges with the external stakeholders to gain their trust back.

Mataiciwa says she had certain things to fix, one of which was to establish a strong foundation for the organization.

Mataiciwa made this clear on fijivillage Straight Talk With Vijay Narayan and highlighted the fact that there were members of her staff who had served the establishment since 2014 while some have served for more than 5 years.

She emphasized the importance of setting up a healthy culture in terms of staff members raising their concerns and opinions without being victimized.

Mataiciwa says the second issue she wanted to address was flexibility, in terms of humanizing the way they worked having flexible hours, and not being used like robots as they previously encountered during the chronological events of the previous administration.

Furthermore, Mataiciwa says they need to follow the simple process of honesty and they have to be honest with themselves.

Mataiciwa says they needed to do an internal review of themselves, the 2022 general elections and the overall operations of the organization.

Mataiciwa referred the former Supervisor of Elections, Mohammed Saneem to the Fiji Independent Commission Against Corruption, when she came in and says the matter is now before the courts.