By Felix Chaudhary in Suva
The People’s Alliance party leader Sitiveni Rabuka claims the Social Democratic Liberal Party (SODELPA) “has sold its soul” in secretly “working in cahoots” with the FijiFirst party after SODELPA lodged a complaint against the alliance with the Fijian Elections Office yesterday.
Rabuka claimed the complaint against the People’s Alliance on the reinstatement of the Great Council of Chiefs and abolishment of the soli ni yasana proved that SODELPA no longer worked in the best interests of the iTaukei but for the benefit of the FijiFirst party.
In a statement yesterday, he claimed the complaint had shown that “not only is the SODELPA president aligned with FijiFirst and Bainimarama, SODELPA, through their general secretary as the authorised officer of the party, is now working behind the scenes to fix the marriage”.
However, SODELPA general secretary Lenaitasi Duru said the party believed the People’s Alliance had not fulfilled a requirement of the Electoral Act regarding the declaration of funds to finance their manifesto.
“We are just following the law, the Act, the provisions that are there, we have done it so we expect everybody that’s putting out a manifesto to do it,” he said.
At a media conference yesterday, Supervisor of Elections Mohammed Saneem said the complaint was not grounds for deregistering the People’s Alliance.
He said they had asked the PA to provide a response.
“No, the party can’t be deregistered,” Saneem said.
However, he said the PA might be referred to the Fiji Independent Commission Against Corruption for failure to comply with Section 116.
He said the party had until today to respond to the FEO.
- The Fiji general election is on December 14.
Felix Chaudhary is a Fiji Times journalist. Republished with permission.
