Fiji's election supervisor yesterday took responsibility for long delays and other problems at voting stations on the first day of the weeklong elections dominated by ethnic tensions and a dispute between the military chief and the prime minister.
Polling booths were closed as scheduled yesterday in the strongly Christian country, and voting will resume today. On Saturday, the first day of voting, thousands of people waited for hours and others were turned away from several polling stations -- most in the capital, Suva -- because ballot papers and electoral rolls had not arrived on time, election officials said.
Election Supervisor Semesa Karavaki said affected stations were kept open after the scheduled 5pm closing time to make-up lost time.
"They'll all open at the scheduled time tomorrow," Karavaki said yesterday. "Voting went very smoothly after all the polling stations were open and that is an indication of what it's going to be like tomorrow."
Karavaki said he took responsibility for the delays which were due "to a certain extent" to his observation of the Seventh Day Adventist Sabbath on Saturday.
He rejected angry candidates' demands that he be fired as the top election official, and insisted he would not work on the final polling day on Saturday.
"I'll make better preparations in advance of my next Sabbath," Karavaki said.
The contest to fill 71 parliamentary seats and elect a prime minister is a test of this former British colony's democracy, which has weathered three coups in the past decade and remains split by tensions between the indigenous Fijian majority and large ethnic Indian minority.
Analysts have expressed concern that a victory for caretaker Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase could mean continuing instability wrought by a bitter dispute he has with military chief Commodore Frank Bainimarama, while a win for Labour opposition leader Mahendra Chaudhry could provoke another coup.
Chaudhry was Fiji's first ethnic-Indian prime minister when Fijian nationalists stormed parliament in May 2000 and took him and other lawmakers hostages, demanding Fijian primacy in politics.
Indigenous Fijians account for 51 percent of the population of about 906,000, while Indians are a minority of about 44 percent.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese