1 May 2008

Leading Pacific NGO slams Fiji interim regime's push for forum on electoral reform

7:47 pm on 1 May 2008

The Pacific Concerns Resource Centre or PCRC has criticised a move to reform Fiji's electoral system.

The interim government says Fiji's president has approved the call to set up a forum to discuss changing the voting system.

The interim regime wants to scrap the electoral system laid down in the constitution.

But Ema Tagicakibau from the PCRC says the National Council for Building a Better Fiji's call for the forum is an attempt to sneak in changes without democratic approval.

Ms Tagicakibau says unless the changes to the electoral system are brought in after the election, the PCRC will not support the move.

"It is going to undermine the constitution first of all because the people who are proposing these changes are not in themselves legally instituted. It is the National Council for Building a Better Fiji which has taken over the role of the elected parliament. They were not by virtue of the will of the people as elected representatives."

Ema Tagicakibau of the PCRC.