5 Nov 2013

Claims Fiji village duped into saying election not necessary

10:06 pm on 5 November 2013

The Fiji political grouping, the United Front for a Democratic Fiji, says the Bainimarama regime is attempting to defraud villages into supporting a strategy not to hold elections next year.

The UFDF's Mick Beddoes says the people of Nasau village were recently duped into signing a document giving Commodore Frank Bainimarama a mandate not to hold elections in September next year as promised.

Mr Beddoes says this happened when they signed a document they thought was consent for a seaweed project but it was in fact a letter supposedly from the Tui Nasau to the prime minister saying an election wasn't necessary.

But Mr Beddoes says they doubt the letter originated with the Tui Nasau.

"Our source said that the language used in the letter and the typeset of the letter is not something that one, somebody in Koro could actually prepare for use. It had to have come from a source where all of these facilities were readily available."

Mick Beddoes