New Generation acting party leader Varinava Tiko says his plan to unite iTaukei voters by forming a coalition with the Social Democratic Liberal Party (SODELPA) and We Unite Fiji Party was unsuccessful.
He claimed he first attempted talks with the We Unite Fiji party in March “but this was not successful as the Nadroga-based party viewed New Generation’ss ideas and agenda as too big”.
Mr Tiko claimed he recently attempted to join SODELPA but the conditions set by the party’s selection committee was “too much of a risk”.
He claimed SODELPA’s conditions were that the six New General Party candidates resign immediately before being interviewed by the SODELPA selection committee and the party’s management board decided on their candidacy at a later date.
Mr Tiko said that caused grave dissatisfaction amongst his five proposed candidates. He said his proposed candidates had asked if they could join SODELPA without being interviewed.
Mr Tiko also said they deemed the requirement that they first resign from NGP as “risky”, given the uncertainty of the SODELPA management board’s decision to take them on. He claimed they were being treated as if they were desperate to join SODEPLA.
“But this is not the case, I was merely trying to unite the iTaukei votes in the country.”
Mr Tiko said the New Generation Party would now contest the 2022 General Election on its own.
In response, SODELPA general secretary Lenataisi Duru said that “the Political Parties Act demands that a person cannot be member of two registered parties at any given time”.
“He should spend some time and read through the Act,” Mr Duru said.
“SODELPA agreed to their proposal to resign and contest the election under our banner with the understanding that we are bound by the law.”
He accused Mr Tiko of “cooking up a self-pity approach to stay relevant, similar to the actions of former SODELPA member of Parliament Ro Filipe Tuisawau”.
“SODELPA did not split iTaukei votes. People like him (Mr Tiko) and his followers are the very people that will split votes.”
