17 Nov 2018

FijiFirst sits on just under half the vote in latest tally

5:10 pm on 17 November 2018

The incumbent FijiFirst party has just under half the share of the vote with tallying three quarters complete after Wednesday's election.

This afternoon, Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama's party tally crept up to 49.93 percent of votes counted compared with the 49.6 percent recorded this morning.

Sitiveni Rabuka's Sodelpa, which was neck-and-neck with FijiFirst on Friday night, had 40.4 percent of the vote this morning and have now dropped to 39.96 percent.

The National Federation Party is a distant third, creeping up to 7.36 percent from 7.2 percent.

Frank Bainimarama leads in the top candidates with 129,344 votes compared with Sodelpa's Sitiveni Rabuka at 59,189.

FijiFirst's general secretary is third with 12,989 votes.

1715 of 2173 polling stations, or 79 percent, have been added to the final tally so far compared to the 1590 this morning.

Provisional results phoned through on Wednesday night indicated a slender majority for Mr Bainimarama's party.

Some areas are voting today, after their polling centres were forced to close by flooding on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, Mr Bainimarama and his family left the country on Friday to attend a funeral in New Zealand.

Islands Business reports that they are due to return to Fiji on Monday.