ANY candidate who has not been approved by the Fijian Elections Office to contest the 2018 General Election can appeal the decision with the Electoral Commission tomorrow.
Supervisor of Elections Mohammed Saneem mentioned this while revealing that 234 candidates have been approved by the FEO to contest the upcoming polls.
He said 243 candidates were nominated for the November 14 poll but only 234 were approved after nine candidates were rejected.
Of these nine, three were from the Fiji Labour Party, three from the Unity Fiji Party and one each from the FijiFirst party, National Federation Party and the Social Democratic Liberal Party (SODELPA).
He confirmed that FLP, FijiFirst, NFP and SODELPA have resubmitted their nominations to replace their candidates who were disqualified and they have all been approved by the FEO following their verification process yesterday.
However, three candidates nominated by the UFP were disqualified later today after the closure of the candidates’ nomination period and the verification exercise by the FEO.
Mr Saneem said one of the three was adjusted bankrupt while the other two did not qualify on the criminal conviction requirements.
“Any candidate who is not approved today is permitted to appeal the decision tomorrow to the Electoral Commission,” he said.
“The time for appeal starts tomorrow and ends at 4pm tomorrow.”
The FEO has also advised that any candidate who has been approved today could withdraw their nomination by midday tomorrow should they wished to do so.
