FijiFirst’s Voreqe Bainimarama, the incumbent Prime Minister, looks to have scored a comfortable win in Fiji’s general election.

While the voting system and count has been complicated, and lost much credibility when the system went down, FijiFirst is likely to hold a majority of the Legislative Assembly’s 55 seats.

Sitiveni Rabuka’s People’s Alliance and the National Federation Party will make up the opposition.

Social Democrats and Fiji Labour Party have failed to make the five percent threshold and will not be in Parliament.

The Suva-based regional news magazine Islands Business reports that the election count was plagued by a long delay and technical breakdown last night, “as former coup leader turned Prime Minister [Voreqe] Bainimarama aimed to extend his 16-year grip on power.”

According to reporter Steven Trask, “his chief political rival Sitiveni Rabuka, a two-time coup leader nicknamed “Rambo”, held an early lead on Wednesday night before results were abruptly taken offline.

“Bainimarama’s governing FijiFirst party was in front when the reporting resumed some four hours later.

“In a hastily-arranged press conference in the early hours of [today], election supervisor Mohammed Saneem said vote counters had detected an ‘anomaly’.”

RNZ Pacific described it as a “glitch” in the system.

Michael Field is an independent journalist and author, and co-manager of The Pacific Newsroom.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Opposition National Party leader Christopher Luxon says there are more important issues facing Aotearoa New Zealand than the controversy over a party social media post while he was holidaying in Hawai’i.

He has admitted he was holidaying in Hawai’i last week despite his social media posts suggesting he was visiting provincial New Zealand.

While he was away, a video was posted on his Facebook page where he claimed to be in Te Puke visiting businesses.

“We should have posted it closer to the date and we should’ve at least captioned it that it was in recent days, not implying that it was on that day,” Luxon told RNZ Morning Report.

“We got that wrong, and we own that.”

He said he had expected the video to be posted on the day of the visit or soon after.

It was “honestly a mistake”.

Cost of living
He said there were more important things to focus on, like New Zealand’s cost of living and crime, than the social media post.

“There are more things that I’m lying awake at night worrying about in New Zealand than a social media post.”

And while the country was facing a cost-of-living crisis, he said his family deserved a vacation away from New Zealand.

“New Zealanders are doing it incredibly tough,” he said pointing to record-high inflation.

“And that’s because this government doesn’t have an economic plan. Lots of band-aid economics.

“We’ve got dumb and wasteful spending going on in the government not getting outcomes.”

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

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz