Keep religion out of politics

Just when we think that the Methodist Church has freed itself from the political shackles of the past, its president, Reverend Ili Vunisawai, surprises many by wading into the controversy over the Fijian Elections Office apps glitches. The glitches caused disruption to the release of provisional results and “discrepancies”.

In a letter to the President, Ratu Wiliame Katonivere, Reverend Vunisuwai, said the church wished to register its concern on the counting of votes and inconsistency of the electronic results management system. Because of the “continuous anomalies in the FEO”, he said they had lost faith in it and asked if the results could be validated by manual counting.

For his information, all counting at polling stations and at Count Centre is manual. The app is only used to announce results. There are a lot of conspiracy theories out there. Allegations of vote rigging have been whipped up by public euphoria. But where is the evidence?

The counting at the Count Centre is done in the full view of political party agents who act as scrutineers. Pink and white slips that contain results are visible and available for parties to download into their USBs and take them to their offices.

Up until Thursday night only one party, The People’s Alliance, had taken advantage of the resources. Where were the other parties?

The final results will be declared on Sunday. Reverend Vunisuwai has set a new precedent for the church by intervening in an electoral process. The Methodist Church tells its ministers to be apolitical or step down. If the church can participate in a political election by joining a debate, why can’t church ministers do the same? It’s this kind of hypocritical position that confuses church members and causes instability.

This year’s annual conference showed that the church had a lot of internal challenges to sort out than worrying about politics.