Observers from the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat are monitoring Saturday's general election in Nauru.
In circumstances resembling those that precipitated the last election, this year's early poll was called after repeated unsuccessful bids by the opposition to lodge motions of no confidence and truncates the term of President Marcus Stephen's government by a year.
The director of the government information office says there are 86 candidates, eight of whom are women.
Joanna Olsson says 18 seats are to be divided among the top two winning candidates from each constituency, apart from Ubenide which gets four members.
She says as with the previous two elections, the process is being monitored for cheating and other improper conduct.
"They come in and observe, assess and monitor the election process as a whole, just to see it's conducted democratically and fairly and how people feel about elections, so for the week they've been here they've been talking to as many departments, state owned entrerprise, the private sector, NGOs and just individuals in general."
Joanna Olsson says an 80 to 90 percent turnout is expected in the 18 multi-member seat contest.
