The Fiji Human Rights Commission has organized an open inquiry to be held throughout the country for those citizens who wish to report irregularities and fraud that they observed during the 2006 elections.  The committee, which will include by lawyer Gyaneshwar Prasad Lala, will begin traveling around the country next week taking the accounts of persons and political parties to try to determine what, if anything, went wrong in the previous election.  The information that is gathered, says Lala, will then be used to make recommendations about how the interim government should conduct itself in the upcoming election to ensure that such irregularities do no repeat.  Already the commission has received so many submissions that the Chairman of the Inquiry, Dr. Shaista Shameem, said that the consulted hired to take the interviews will be forced to wrap his first round soon because so much information has already been brought forward.

This investigation comes even after international observers declared that the elections were not irregular.  Spokesmen for the committee insist that the inquiry is necessary because the international observers were not aware of a huge loss of voting paper from the election, a loss that was only discovered after the 2006 coup.  Lala says that it is not yet certain if the missing voting paper contributed to election fraud, but that this is what the inquiry is designed to find out.

In other news, interim Prime Minister Bainimarama said on 15 August that the next election of Fiji’s government is scheduled to be held on March 13, 2009; however, he went on to say that this date was incumbent upon all of the necessary preparatory work being completed in time.  It is this preparatory work, or the lack thereof, that has brought on criticism from the chairman of the Forum/Fiji Workgroup, Peter Eafeare.  Eafeare, who is also PNG’s High Commissioner to Fiji, says that before an election can be held certain infrastructural milestones–such as a census, updates to the electoral roll and a redrawing of constituency  boundaries–must first be reached.  Of the lack of boundary reform Eafeare has said, “Not withstanding the fact that you require a full constitutional body like a parliament to decided on that, [the Constitutional Boundary Commission] was supposed started 7th July and be completed by the 31st August still not seen hide nor hair of [it].”

Parmesh Chand, Head of the Prime Minister’s Office, spoke out saying that the international community has not offered sufficient praise to Fiji’s Government for its positive strides towards a democratic future.  Chand said that the government has made a commitment to hold elections by March 2009 at the latest and has ear-marked funds for electoral commissions and a census, but despite these steps  he and other members of the  government face travel restrictions from New Zealand, Australia and the United States.  “Where is the goodwill of the international community and your government as well in all this?” Chand asked, referring particularly to New Zealand.

Please see also:
“Date set for next election” Fiji Times Online (16 August 2007)
“Lawyer Lala leads probe into last poll problems” Fiji Times Online (16 August 2007)
“Fiji Human Rights Commission appoints Suva-based lawyer to investigate 2006 election” Radio New Zealand International (15 August 2007)
“Fiji falling behind agreed election schedule” Radio New Zealand International(15 August 2007)
“Fiji rights group commission probe of 2006 election” Radio New Zealand International (15 August 2007)