Proposed Zionist Party Rejected

'The application only had 1880 members out of the required 2000 for Central and 1633 members out of the required 1750 for the Western Division.'

Registrar of Political Parties Mohammed Saneem says many signatories in the proposed Zionist Party application were already included in other parties.

In a statement, Mr Saneem outlined that following the verification of members exercise, it was found that the application failed to meet the required numbers for Central and Western Divisions.

“The application only had 1880 members out of the required 2000 for Central and 1633 members out of the required 1750 for the Western Division.”

Mr Saneem further stated that the Constitution of the proposed party also did not meet the minimum requirements for the Political Parties as per the Political Parties (Registration, Conduct, Funding and Disclosures) Act, 2013.

The proposed party president Tevita Talemaikadavu said that they did not understand why their registration was rejected.

Mr Taleimaikadavu said they were not satisfied with the verification process conducted by the Fiji Elections Office.

He claimed the Fijian Elections Office was not transparent and had advised them to take the matter to the High Court should they wish to appeal.

“However, we will sit together...and discuss on what happened and why and what we are going to do,” he said.

He said they had worked hard in ten months to collect the 5000 signatories and register.