6 Apr 2006

Fiji Labour Party may take more legal action over May poll

10:18 am on 6 April 2006

The Fiji Labour Party is threatening to mount another legal challenge against the Elections Office and the Electoral Commission after the polls next month.

Radio Legend reports that the Labour leader, Mahendra Chaudhry, has written to the chairman of the Electoral Commission, Graham Leung, calling on him to advise the president to defer the elections for up to six weeks.

Mr Chaudhry says this would allow for mistakes found in the electoral rolls to be corrected to ensure a fair poll.

He says Labour's constituency offices are still are finding more and more errors in the rolls and this means that hundreds and perhaps thousands of people may not be able to cast their votes.

Mr Chaudhry says even the names of some Labour Party candidates do not appear on the electoral rolls and they cannot be nominated to stand on nomination day on April the 11th.

He says this is the first time they have seen such incompetence by a supervisor of elections.

The Electoral Commission chairman, Graham Leung, says they are looking at the concerns raised by Mr Chaudhry.