Parties marshall polling agents for Nov 14 election
Opposition political parties are working in earnest to ensure their polling agents are present at all polling venues across the country. Speaking to the Fiji Sun, Unity Fiji Party leader Savenaca Narube said opposition parties would conduct a joint workshop for party agents in the next two weeks. “Once we identify which party is going to provide what agent and where, then we will hold the training for these party agents so they know what they are going to be looking for, the procedures and also identify what is not supposed to be happening,” he said.
“We need to scrutinise the polling events throughout the processes and it is so important.
“In the last election, I think the opposition parties were not ready, but this election we are better prepared to do that.”
With more than 2000 polling stations for this year’s General Election, Mr Narube said, they would need at least two opposition party agents present at each polling station. He added that opposition parties would share responsibilities because of the large number of polling stations.
“So the training is going to be quite critical,” Mr Narube said.
Party Candidates:
Mr Narube said Unity Fiji was still aiming for 51 provisional candidates.
Now that the writ has been issued, he said it had started a momentum to bring in those who were waiting for the writ.
“Unity Fiji will announce its provisional candidates very soon,” the party leader said.
“We have some good youths in our lineup and the youngest is 27, which is a good combination. “Our hope is to get 25 per cent women with an ethnic balance as much as possible.”
Party Manifesto:
“Our manifesto is ready, it has benefitted from the consultations around the country, and the critical decision now is when we will launch it.”
He said there were three main highlights in their manifesto including, “providing the dignity of living to everybody, we will not leave anyone behind, especially the poor people and we must empower our people through good governance”.
Also commenting on the party size, Mr Narube said the voters would determine which party was big and which party was small.
“We cannot refer to the 2014 election, that’s history.
“We are leaving it to the people to determine who is big and who is small.”