6 Apr 2006

Fiji Labour Party to decide on legal chalenge over errors in Electoral Roll, says lawyer

8:26 pm on 6 April 2006

A lawyer with the Fiji Labour Party says they expect to decide by early next week whether to mount another legal challenge against the Elections Office and the Electoral Commission.

Anand Singh says the challenge would be over hundreds, and potentially thousands, of mistakes found in the general roll for next month's election.

The Labour leader, Mahendra Chaudhry, has written to the chairman of the Electoral Commission, Graham Leung, calling on him to advise the president to defer the elections for up to six weeks.

Mr Singh says Labour is yet to decide whether to forge ahead with the legal challenge or whether to focus on campainging and ensuring supporter votes ahead of the election.

"But then on the other hand we are of the view that it would most unfair to go to the election without the electoral being settled. That is something that has to be done prior to the elections."

Anand Singh says a deferral would allow for mistakes found in the electoral rolls to be corrected to ensure a fair poll.