Fiji’s Registrar of political parties Mohammed Saneem has refused the registration of the proposed ‘We Unite Fiji’ party because it failed to meet the minimum requirement.
Saneem said the party was not able to provide the required number of members for the central and northern divisions as stipulated under the Political Parties Act.
“Our assessment is as follows, the central division we required 2000 members, the application submitted 1784 members, western members we required 1750 we received 2965 members, northern we require 1,000 members, we received 846 members and eastern division we required 250 members we received 259 in the application,” Saneem said.
“We note that the application fails to meet the minimum requirement under section 63I of the Act in which it has failed to comply with the numbers for the central and northern division. Based on the above, the registrar has refused the application of the proposed ‘We Unite Fiji’ party.”
The proposed party, located at the Sunflower Hill Villa along the Queen’s Highway in Mataqe, Nadroga/Navosa submitted its application for registration on 31 December 2021. There was no objection to the application’s registration when it was published in one of the dailies last Monday, 21 February, but it fell short during the verification of members.
The refusal means only seven political parties are eligible to contest the 2022 General Elections which can happen anytime between 9 July 2022 and 9 January 2023. The seven parties include the ruling FijiFirst Government party, opposition parties SODELPA and National Federation, Fiji Labour Party, Freedom Alliance, Unity Fiji, and The People’s Alliance.
