Fiji’s ruling party leads provisional count after national election

SUVA, Fiji - The ruling Fiji First party led provisional results, boosted by a 31.42 per cent vote for Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama, with half of polling stations counted in the Pacific island nation after Wednesday’s national election.

Mr Bainimarama, who came to power in a coup 16 years ago, is contesting his third democratic election since reforms to Fiji’s Constitution in 2013 scrapped a race-based voting system.

He is in a tight race against another former coup leader and one-time prime minister Sitiveni Rabuka, whose People’s Alliance Party has formed a coalition with Fiji’s oldest political party, the National Federation Party.

The provisional result showed Fiji First with 45.88 per cent of votes at 7am local time on Thursday, ahead of the People’s Alliance Party with 32.66 per cent of votes, while the National Federation Party had 9.29 per cent of votes.

With 1,238 out of 2,017 polling stations counted, Mr Bainimarama had garnered 31.42 per cent of all votes in Fiji’s proportional representation system, where there is a single constituency, and Mr Rabuka had 16.34 per cent of votes.

On Thursday morning in the National Results Centre, Fiji’s election commissioner, Mr Mohammed Saneem, demonstrated to media a “double-blind data entry” system that is being used for the final count, which began on Thursday.

The final result will be known on Sunday, he said, adding that it was a “rigorous system” intended to prevent errors.

There were earlier reports of a technical breakdown during vote counting.

Mr Rabuka

held an early lead on Wednesday night

before results were abruptly taken offline.

Mr Bainimarama’s governing Fiji First party was in front when the reporting resumed some four hours later.

Fiji’s opposition on Thursday demanded counting stop in the coup-prone nation’s bitterly fought general election, alleging serious “anomalies” that put the poll’s legitimacy in doubt.

Mr Rabuka said the system had been compromised and ongoing counting should be scrapped.

In a joint statement, four opposition leaders said the incident “called into serious question the integrity of the entire system”.

Mr Rabuka said he was also considering writing to the military to ensure the election was fair – but sought to assure the country that there “will not be a coup”.

In a contested vote, the military could be key. The country’s top commander has said the armed forces would respect the election result.

Mr Rabuka told AFP earlier: “We will pursue every avenue available to us to make sure that the people are not denied their right of electing their government.”

Vote organisers have called the incident an “anomaly”, and pointed to provisional results that most observers agreed were improbable.

First returns showed a handful of little-known politicians gaining thousands of votes and polling well ahead of the major parties.

Mr Saneem said vote counters had detected an “anomaly”. He cited one “mismatch” between votes cast and a candidate’s tally.

“To cure this the Fijian Elections Office had to review the entire mechanism through which we were pushing out results,” he added.

The irregularity dominated local news bulletins and was met with scepticism and anger on social media, but Mr Saneem defended the integrity of the count.

“Everyone is too hungry for conspiracy theories,” he told reporters.

Nervous wait

Mr Bainimarama, 68, seized control of Fiji in a 2006 putsch, but legitimised his grip on power with election wins in 2014 and 2018.

Fiji now faces a nervous wait – ballots must be tallied from remote islands and highland villages.

Voter turnout was less than 60 per cent, the lowest in a decade.

The election is being seen as a test of the nation’s fledgling democracy.

Shailendra Singh, a political commentator and associate professor of journalism at the University of the South Pacific in Fiji, said the voter turnout was the lowest since Fiji’s constitution was reformed in 2013.

The rising cost of living and the economy were major issues for voters, he said.

Asked whether he would accept the outcome, win or lose, Mr Bainimarama said “of course” as he cast his ballot in the capital Suva with his granddaughter in tow.

He then lashed out at reporters, suggesting they ask “better questions”.

Mr Rabuka said he would readily concede defeat if beaten, but questioned whether Mr Bainimarama would do the same.

“I think he will not. So I’m hoping for a flood of votes in our favour, so that it makes any attempt at that course futile,” he said.

Blake Johnson from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute said any arguments about the result would likely be dealt with through the courts, rather than another coup.

“Should Rabuka win, this will be Fiji’s first test at completing a peaceful handover of power in nearly two decades,” he told AFP on Wednesday.

“If Bainimarama refuses to accept defeat, we could see several legal challenges tie up the parliamentary and judicial systems for some time.”

Mr Rabuka – who is also a former Fijian international rugby player and Commonwealth Games hammer thrower – has signalled that Fiji could loosen its ties with China if he is elected.

Fiji has grown closer to Beijing under Mr Bainimarama, who used a “look north” policy to stabilise the economy after Australia and New Zealand hit the country with heavy trade sanctions in retaliation for his 2006 coup.

Blackout

The buildup to the vote was

marked by a strict media blackout,

preventing local journalists from covering any aspect of the election for 48 hours before voting day and until polls closed.

Office worker Dee Atama said that there is a need for change in Fiji, and that more should be done for younger voters.

“Something for the younger ones, because they will be the ones leading the future,” she told AFP from a voting booth at a Suva school.

Salesman Niraj Prasad, 50, said not everyone in Fiji favours a change of government.

“Some people say it’s time for a change,” he told AFP from a voting centre on the outskirts of Suva.

“Probably this is a mixed feeling... it depends on what the government is doing.”

Fiji has a population of some 900,000 and is heavily reliant on its tourism industry – which was badly damaged by the Covid-19 pandemic. AFP