17 Jan 2013

Fiji regime advises foreign missions about election process

5:22 pm on 17 January 2013

The Fiji interim government has sent a letter to the heads of all diplomatic missions in Fiji by the Attorney General, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, laying out a timetable for election preparations and inviting them to take part.

The elections due in September next year are for a new parliament to replace the one shut down by the 2006 military coup.

The letter has also been sent to a range of multilateral agencies such as the United Nations Development Program, the Asian Development Bank, the International Labour Organisation and the Pacific Islands Forum, from which it has been suspended for reneging on an earlier election promise.

The Attorney-General says more than six million US dollars in the 2013 budget has been allocated for election preparations, including voter registration within Fiji and abroad.

The international community funded the regime-appointed commission which last month produced a draft constitution as part of the election process, but the regime dumped it.