6 Sep 2016

Nauru court to rule on whether petition properly served on president

3:16 pm on 6 September 2016

The Nauru Supreme Court will hold a hearing tomorrow to decide whether an election petition filed against the country's president was correctly served.

Baron Waqa won back his seat in the Boe constituency with 246 votes but Dale Cecil, who won 144, accused him of bribery, treating and breaking advertising laws on election day.

Since filing the petition Mr Cecil has had his pension cancelled by the government.

A former president, Sprent Dabwido, says there is now a dispute about whether Mr Cecil properly served the petition on Mr Waqa.

"Mr Cecil went and got his brother to serve it on the president, the president's children threw his paper away and now we're going to go to court on Wednesday, tomorrow, to determine if it was served properly or not and what's got to be done to be served properly."