Fiji’s election count yesterday was tightening following a tumultuous night for opposition leader former Fijian prime minister Sitiveni Rabuka, who police called in for questioning after he urged the military to intervene.
A two-time coup leader, Rabuka, 74, is challenging Fijian Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama, 68, an ex-navy commodore who has won two elections since first seizing control of the island nation in a 2006 putsch.
Rabuka’s People’s Alliance party and its coalition partner yesterday afternoon held a 44 to 42 percent lead over Bainimarama’s FijiFirst party, with more than half the country’s 2,071 stations having submitted their results.
Photo: EPA-EFE
However, Bainimarama — who has been silent since votes were cast on Wednesday — is widely expected to move in front when booths in urbanized areas submit their tallies, with a final result anticipated by today.
Detectives summoned Rabuka to the Fijian Criminal Investigations Department late on Friday after he repeatedly complained about “anomalies” in the results and asked the military to step in.
People’s Alliance general-secretary Sakiasi Ditoka was also questioned.
There was a sizable police presence outside the department overnight, with officers setting up temporary roadblocks.
Rabuka yesterday said he believed he had been summoned due to his request to the military, which has “overall” responsibility for maintaining stability under Fiji’s 2013 constitution.
“They tried to paint a picture of a person, a high-profile person, making a statement like that — and how that would impact on the people,” he told reporters.
The aftermath of Wednesday’s poll has grown tense since an election-night “anomaly” knocked results offline for four hours.
Opposition parties led by Rabuka have said the incident cast doubt on the entire election process and that counting should be stopped immediately.
“In view of the substantial breach of counting, we demand an immediate cessation of the current electoral process and to be replaced with a fresh manual count of all votes,” Rabuka told the Fijian supervisor of elections in a letter written on Thursday and released yesterday.
Rabuka’s hopes of stopping the count faded on Friday, when Fijian Major General Jone Kalouniwai rebuffed his plea for the army to get involved.
The answer was “no,” Rabuka said. “He will not be drawn into it.”
International observers have expressed no concerns about the conduct of the vote.
Australian lawmaker Rebekha Sharkie, who is an election observer, said that no “significant irregularities or issues” had been observed during pre-polling, postal voting or the casting of ballots on election day.
While the vote is seen as a test of Fiji’s often-fragile democracy, there is regional significance as well. Bainimarama has been close to China, while Rabuka is likely to distance himself from Beijing.
Four Fijian prime ministers have been toppled by coups in the past 35 years.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
A new online voting system aimed at boosting turnout among the Philippines’ millions of overseas workers ahead of Monday’s mid-term elections has been marked by confusion and fears of disenfranchisement. Thousands of overseas Filipino workers have already cast their ballots in the race dominated by a bitter feud between President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and his impeached vice president, Sara Duterte. While official turnout figures are not yet publicly available, data from the Philippine Commission on Elections (COMELEC) showed that at least 134,000 of the 1.22 million registered overseas voters have signed up for the new online system, which opened on April 13. However,
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
RSS