Doviverata: Nothing changed from last election
FIJI Sun has been publishing the independent Western Force Research public opinion survey before the 2018 general elections and “no one complained”.
Fiji Sun’s acting publisher and CEO Rosi Doviverata said this in response to comments made by the Attorney-General and FijiFirst party general secretary Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum that the newspaper was carrying out politics-related polls without any proper methodology and they were not transparent.
Mr Sayed-Khaiyum said a search in the companies office showed there was no entity registered as Western Force Research but there was a business registered under the name
“Mere Western Force
Research
(MWFR)” registered under one
Mere Makita Serukalou.
He said the business name ceased to be registered from October 19, 2021, but was reregistered in December 2021.
He said it was not known whether MWFR conducted polls during the period it was not registered.
He said the Fiji Sun had not provided information of where the samples were taken from and were “giving very skewed results”.
Mr Sayed-Khaiyum said he had written a letter to Supervisor of Elections (SOE) Mohammed Saneem regarding the conduct of the Fiji Sun.
He said it was of concern the Fiji Sun appeared to be publishing results of the polls without having any regard to proper sampling techniques required to ensure the polls were conducted in a professional manner and can be relied upon.
In response, Ms Doviverata said they were using the same methodology used in the polls before the 2018 general election.
“The elections result mirrored the Fiji Sun-Western
Force Research monthly poll,” she said in a statement. “No one complained. The poll now still uses the same methodology. Nothing has changed.”
Left: FijiFirst party general secretary Aiyaz SayedKhaiyum speaks to the media during a press conference at the FijiFirst party head office in Brown St, Suva on Wednesday.