Former Supervisor of Elections Jon Apted says that the coalition formed by the  Social Democratic Liberal Party with the People’s Alliance/National Federation Party should be able to successfully elect a Prime Minister at the first sitting.

He said that with the 2022 General Election over and FFP tied with the PA/NFP coalition at 26 seats each and Sodelpa holding three critical seats, there were a number of steps to be taken in the process of forming the next government.

“Once the Electoral Commission formally conducts the allocation of seats, they will publicly declare the names of the candidates who have been elected,” he said.

“They then forward those names to the Secretary-General to Parliament.

“They also endorse those names on the writ of election that was earlier issued to the Commission by the President and return the writ to the President.” Apted said under section 67 of the Constitution, the President must then call Parliament to meet within 14 days.

“This can be any date within the next two weeks.

“Under the Constitution, he needs to act on the advice of the current Prime Minister. The President has no power to act in his own judgment.”

Swearing in new members
Apted said under the Constitution where no party had won an outright majority of seats, the sitting PM and Cabinet remained in office until the first meeting of Parliament.

“At that first meeting, the SG must first swear in the new members who then elect the Speaker.

“The Speaker comes from outside Parliament. A candidate or candidates would be nominated by the members of the parties in Parliament. The Speaker must be elected by a simple majority of votes. Assuming that everyone turns up and is sworn in, that means that the new Speaker must have the support of at least 28 new MPs.”

Apted said once the Speaker was sworn in, he or she would preside over the selection in Parliament for who is to be the PM under section 93 of the Constitution.

“The Speaker first calls for nominations. If only one person is nominated and seconded, that person automatically becomes the PM. However, if there is more than one nominee, a vote must be taken.

“If a nominee gets more than 50 per cent of all the members of Parliament, then they will be PM. If no one gets more than 50 per cent, then a second vote must be held within 24 hours.

“The assumption is that lobbying will go on during this period.

“If after the second vote, someone has more than 50 per cent, he or she will be PM. If not, there has to be a third vote within 24 hours.”

Apted said if no one gets more than 50 per cent in the third vote, then the Speaker has to notify the President that Parliament is unable to elect a PM, and the President must within 24 hours dissolve Parliament and issue a new writ of election for a fresh election.

However, in reality with Sodelpa agreeing to form a coalition with the PAP/NFP coalition, that coalition should be able to successfully elect a PM at the first sitting, Apted said.

Felix Chaudhary is a Fiji Times journalist. Republished with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The final results of the 2022 Fiji general election are in and there appears to be a “hung” Parliament

The make-up of the new 55 seat Parliament — according to the Fiji Elections Office results app — will be FijiFirst with 26 seats, the People’s Alliance Party with 21 seats, the National Federation Party with 5 seats and the Social Democratic Liberal Party (Sodelpa) with 3 seats.

In order to be able to form government 28 seats are needed.

This means that for the first time since the return of democracy to Fiji in 2014, the 2006 coup leader and incumbent Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama’s dominant FijiFirst Party has failed to secure the majority of seats to rule.

Bainimarama will now need to woo at least one of the three opposition party leaders to join him if he is to remain in power.

The People’s Alliance Party — led by 1987 coup leader and former prime minister Sitiveni Rabuka — and the National Federation Party, led by Professor Biman Prasad, formed a pre-election coalition and are unlikely targets for the FijiFirst leader.

But Sodelpa, led by Viliame Gavoka, made no such pre-election promises.

Gavoka also has close family ties to Bainimarama’s right-hand man and the Attorney-general Aiyaz-Sayed Khaiyum.

There is also bad blood between Sodelpa and Rabuka, who broke away from the party to form his current People’s Alliance Party, after having led Sodelpa through the last election in 2018.

Supervisor of elections Mohammed Saneem said the official elections results would be handed over to the Electoral Commission later this afternoon.

‘Not hypocritical’, says Duru
The Fiji Times reports that Sodelpa’s general secretary Lenaitasi Duru denied that the party was being hypocritical negotiating with FijiFirst.

“It’s not hypocritical if you’re going to bring change by joining FFP leader Voreqe Bainimarama,” Duru told the media outside the party headquarters in Suva.

“Right now we’re sitting in the middle, we’re watching and waiting for what is on offer.

“Then, we’ll make the decision based on what’s best for the nation.”

When questioned on the possibility of the party dropping below the five percent threshold he told The Times they are holding on and hoping for the best.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ. 

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Former opposition Sodelpa member Mick Beddoes has appealed to the party’s management board to end the 16-year rule of Voreqe Bainimarama’s FijiFirst government.

In an open letter on his official Facebook page to Sodelpa vice-president Ro Teimumu Kepa, president Ratu Manoa Roragaca, leader Viliame Gavoka and the management board today, Beddoes said: “After many years of inner turmoil, you have the entire country holding their breath to hear your decision, which will either deliver to our people a Christmas gift unlike any we have had for the past 16 years or you will knowingly condemn us all to another four more years of undeserved vindictive, bullying, corrupt, self serving, self enriching and uncaring governance.”

He added that the decision to stay with the people was a “no brainer” to prevent avoid a “hung” parliament.

The official results indicated that FijiFirst had lost its majority with just 26 members of Parliament — the same combined number as the opposition coalition of the People’s Alliance led by former 1987 coup leader Sitiveni Rabuka (21 members) and the National Federation Party (5 seats).

Soldelpa – the only other party of nine contesting the general elections to get across the 5 percent threshold — hold the balance of power with three seats.

“While the decision to stay with the greater interest of all our people, is a ‘no brainer’ I do appreciate the need for the party to take into account the interests and aspirations of its membership,” Beddoes said.

“However, in doing so it has to be weighed against the greater interest of our nation given we have all witnessed in broad daylight and experienced over the past 16 years the greed and self enrichment by the narrow interests of the favored few and as the voting thus far has very clearly indicated por people want change and we as opposition political leaders are ‘obliged to deliver this’ as this is what we promised.”

‘Theft’ of the Fijian name
“Need I remind you that this is the very same government who raided your home at night and took you in for interrogation because you offered to host the Methodist Church Conference, this is the same government who from 2007 to 2013 imposed more than 17 derogatory decrees against your own people, which among other things included the ‘theft’ of the name Fijian from your people by a stroke of a pen, and they banned the right of educated iTaukei students from attending and supporting their respective provincial councils.

“They have excluded your own people from chair positions and board appointments by a margin of 80 percent from all government entities under the guise of ‘merit based’ appointments.

“When they had the opportunity to remove all these oppressive and discriminatory decrees at the time they drafted and imposed their 2013 constitution prior to the 2014 elections, they did not and it remains the law against your people today and they built in provision into the constitution that makes amendments to the constitution near impossible.

“This government’s policies and deliberate discrimination against your own people has resulted your people accounting for 75 percent of our 208,256 absolute poorest citizens, which means more than 156,192 of your own people live in absolute poverty despite owning 89 percent of all the land and you want to even ‘consider’ talking to them?”

Beddoes said Ro Teimumu led Soldelpa in the first opposition challenge that resulted in their first national platform from which to speak out and he was part of the team then.

“In that first effort in 2014, Sodelpa and its opposition colleagues received 202,650 votes to FijiFirst’s 293,714, we were 91,064 short. In our second effort in 2018, we increased our support level to 227,094 vs FijiFirst’s 227,241 and reduced their advantage to just 147 votes.

“Today while we are all still trying to figure out where all the extra votes came from the latest vote tally show we are at this time 58,635 votes ahead and you, Marama, are once again in a position with Bill and your management board to complete the mission we all started back in 2007 and remove the cruel, vindictive, bullying, arrogant, disrespectful and uncaring government that FijiFirst is.

“I beg you Marama, Ratu Manoa and you Bill and your management board, please do not waiver from our initial promise of change and finish the mission we started 15 years ago and end our 16 years of suffering and please give our people the Christmas gift they all deserve.”

Sodelpa in negotiations with both sides
SBS News reports that Sodelpa is in negotiations with both the FijiFirst government and People’s Alliance over which it will support with its balance of power.

Bainimarama’s FijiFirst party is the largest single party with 42.5 per cent of the vote while People’s Alliance and the NFP — which have already said they would join forces — sit at 36 and nine percent respectively.

Sodelpa holds just over five percent of the vote.

Sodelpa general secretary Lenaitasi Duru said today it would enter a second round of negotiations with both parties.

Talebula Kate is a Fiji Times reporter. Republished with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The decision by Samoa’s head of state to call a second election will be challenged in the courts, as the country’s month-long political stalemate descends into legal quagmire.

Tuimalealiifano Vaaletoa Sualauvi II on Tuesday announced he would revoke the results of the general election held on April 9, and Samoans would return to the polls on May 21.

“I am assured that as head of state, I am able to call fresh elections where after a general election there is no clear majority to call a government and where it is clear that it is in the public interest to do so,” he told a media conference.

The Human Rights Protection Party (HRPP), which has ruled Samoa for 39 years, and the FAST party, which was founded only last year, have been in a deadlock since April’s election, with 26 seats each.

Tuimalealiifano said the only way he saw fit to end the deadlock was to declare a second election, a move endorsed by the HRPP leader, caretaker prime minister Tuilaepa Sa’ilele Malielegaoi.

But the leader of FAST, Tuilaepa’s former deputy Fiame Naomi Mataafa, rejected the decision, accusing the caretaker prime minister of meddling in the electoral process.

She said it would be unconstitutional.

On Wednesday, Fiame confirmed to RNZ Pacific that the Head of State’s decision would be challenged in the courts.

“I wasn’t sure on what legal basis he was making this call to hold general elections,” she said.

“We will be challenging this in court and our lawyers are working on that.”

The FAST party insists that the Head of State acted too soon in calling the second election, as all avenues to resolve the stalemate had not yet been exhausted.

Parliament had not even sat, for one.

Extra seat for women
Also, she said the stalemate could have been resolved this week, with the Supreme Court due to hear a challenge by the FAST party against the electoral commissioner’s decision to add an extra seat for women, which created the 26-26 tie.

The constitution provides that 10 percent of Parliament’s seats be reserved for women, but it also specifies that as five seats. This is the crux of the argument — the election saw five women elected, or 9.8 percent.

The Supreme Court sat today to hear the challenge, but the Attorney-General, Savalenoa Mareva Betham-Annandale, asked that the case be thrown out, arguing there was no point in proceeding in the wake of the election declaration.

The case was adjourned until Friday.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Samoa could end going back to the polls should a tie of 26/26 between the Human Rights Protection Party (HRPP) and the Fa’atuatua i le Atua Samoa ua Tasi (FAST) party ensue.

The caretaker Prime Minister, Tuilaepa Sa’ilele Malielegaoi, told the media yesterday of the possibility of a united government to avoid Samoa having a hung Parliament.

“If I call Parliament to meet tomorrow with such numbers 26/26, then there is no other way but to ask the Head of State to dissolve Parliament and call fresh elections,” said Tuilaepa.

He said when the results came back on election day, he called independent Tuala Ponifasio to congratulate him, and then texted him the following Sunday asking for a meeting.

“I told him that he held the balance for a government and that it was a good thing for his children and his constituency, and that I wanted to help him decide no matter which side he will take,” said Tuilaepa.

He also informed Tuala that a government cannot be formed should he continue as an independent, and the only option is for the Head of State to declare another election.

Asked about a media report that Tuala had asked him to step down, Tuilaepa said the meeting was between two professionals.

Report ‘a bit harsh’
“The report was a bit harsh but it was not in that tone as we talked as two professionals,” said Tuilaepa.

On the second and last meeting, Tuala asked for some of his senior members to be present. But Tuala was late and the meeting was not long “as the party was waiting for our evening prayers,” said Tuilaepa.

After that meeting, Tuala said he was announcing his decision on Wednesday this week after he meets his constituency.

Tuilaepa has confirmed that his party is preparing legal challenges against FAST and he was mindful of possible petitions against HRPP.

How long these legal battles take is unpredictable and it could take more than a month for some.

Tuilaepa, however, said that the hearing of the legal challenges will not stop the formation of a government, and the outcome of the cases will also determine the fate of the government of the day.

He referred to 1982 when Samoa had four different governments and prime ministers in one year as a result of court cases following the general elections.

Meanwhile, the court decisions against cases before it will have an impact on the numbers of elected members for each party and may influence the formation of a new government.

Lagi Keresoma is a reporter with Talamua Online.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz