19 Sep 2014

Fiji's Bainimarama confident of victory

11:22 am on 19 September 2014

The leader of the FijiFirst Party, Rear Admiral Frank Bainimarama, says he's confident of winning the election with a good majority, but concedes his party won't win all 50 seats.

He has told Pacnews that he is ready to form the next government.

Rear Admiral Bainimarama says while his party always aimed for 50 seats, a couple of SODELPA candidates have got a handful of votes.

He says he is confident of getting the rest of the numbers but has to wait until all the votes are counted.

When counting was suspended, FijiFirst had won just over 60 percent of the votes.

However, five parties have said they won't recognise the election outcome because of irregularities.

The minister in charge of the election, Aiyaz sayed-Khaiyum, who is also a FijiFirst candidate, has rejected the parties' concerns, saying if they found any anomalies they should have brought those concerns to the attention of the election officials almost immediately.

Under the election decree, no decision or action of the election officials can be challenged.

The international monitors have released a first assessment of polling and have found the result broadly represents the will of the people.

90 foreign observers were deployed to monitor the election at just over 2,000 polling stations.

Government buildings, Suva

Government buildings, Suva Photo: RNZ / Sally Round