Fijians flocked to vote yesterday in the nation’s first election since a 2006 coup, with officials saying the poll was trouble-free and Fijian Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama saying he would win.
Long lines formed at polling centers before doors opened at 7:30am and a festive atmosphere prevailed, with many people turning out in their Sunday best to take part in the return to democracy after almost eight years of military rule.
At the Vatuwaqa Public School just outside Suva city center, Bainimarama cast his ballot and said he was willing to submit to the will of the people after years of ruling by decree.
Bainimarama, who is standing as a prime ministerial candidate, said he was confident of winning the historic poll, which for the first time extends full voting rights to ethnic-Indian Fijians, who make up 40 percent of the 900,000 population.
“We’ve been through a lot in the last eight years... today is very important for Fiji, this is the first time we are voting without any discrimination,” he told reporters. “Before you used to queue up to vote in different races, that is now gone. Today is about bringing democracy back to Fiji.”
The vote was seen as pivotal to ending the country’s “coup culture,” which saw four governments toppled between 1987 and 2006, largely due to tensions between indigenous Fijians and ethnic Indians.
“It’s all going smoothly,” Fiji’s South African-born police commissioner Bernardus Groenewald said during a brief visit to the Vatuwaqa school, where he joked with locals and shared his barbeque tips.
Shortly after polls closed at 6pm, Fiji’s elections supervisor Mohammed Saneem said the ballot had been conducted peacefully.
“We haven’t received any reports of any altercations in any of our polling stations and, as such, we can say, from the current information available, that there was no violence,” he told reporters.
Australian diplomat Andrew Goledzinowski, who heads a 92-strong multinational observer group, said it was too early to make a call on whether the election had been free and fair, with a preliminary report expected to be released today.
He said monitoring a vote involving almost 1,500 polling stations across Fiji’s more than 300 islands had been a logistical challenge for his team.
“We’ve been following ballot boxes in boats down rivers, we’ve been crossing ridges in remote areas, we’ve even chartered airplanes to take our observers up to the most remote of the islands,” he said.
About 590,000 registered voters had the chance to select from almost 250 candidates standing for election to a new 50-seat parliament set up under a constitution adopted last year.
Election officials say results might not be formally declared for seven days, but a preliminary count might possibly be available as early as 2am today.
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