Nearly three-quarters of the people who registered to vote in Fiji's local government elections last Saturday did not cast their ballots.
The Fiji Times reports that the chairman of the Electoral commission, Graham Leung, has confirmed that only 20-thousand of the 70-thousand people who registered cast their votes.
Mr Leung says poor turnout is not new and there is a real urgency to educate people to fully appreciate the importance of voting.
He says the poor voter turnout in the municipal elections would not reflect on the 2006 general elections because the national elections generate much more interest than the local government elections.
Meanwhile, the ruling SDL party says it is disappointed with the outcome of the municipal elections because it did not win as many seats as it had expected.
