 And thank you all for joining from your various locations by way of introduction. My name is Anna Lange-Redamboa, and I have the absolute pleasure of being your facilitator for the webinar this morning. So on behalf of International Ideas Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, again, I welcome you all who have joined us for the second webinar of Democratic Development in Melanesia Webinar Series 2023. We would like to welcome all of our panelists and our participants to this morning's webinar. It's morning in Fiji. It's evening in England. One of our panelists is joining us from the United Kingdom this morning. So as part of International Ideas Asia and the Pacific Regional Programs Workplan for 2023, these webinars aim to provide opportunities to citizens of the Melanesia region to take part in substantive discussions around democracy in Melanesia. It's also intended that through the webinars, citizens of Melanesian countries who participate may be able to gain knowledge on the subject matter and on the experiences of other countries. This will, in turn, enhance debates on institutional and procedural improvements in their respective democracies. So the second webinar is titled Municipal Elections in Fiji, Some Legal and Practical Considerations. As we all know, Fiji has experienced a challenging political history, which is marked by four coups and political instability. And the last local government elections were held in 2005. And since then, the municipal councils have been run by appointed administrators. The local government structure in Fiji consists of four divisions and 13 municipalities, each with its own council. The councils are responsible for a range of services, including garbage collection, town planning, beautification, and road maintenance. The new Fijian government intends to hold local government elections in September, October, 2023. However, there are concerns that this may not be a realistic timeline to hold local government elections from scratch. The 2013 Constitution does not have any provision for local government elections. Now, in this respect, International Idea commissioned a paper to take into account the legislations that are enforced currently. Just some house rules for the webinar this morning. We will have three speakers who will deliver their presentations first, and then we will open the webinar up to the audience for around 30 minutes to ask questions after the three speakers have presented. The audience can use the raise hand feature to ask questions, or if you would like to, you could drop your questions in the chat feature. And what we're asking, please, is that you keep your mic soft during the webinar and only turn it on before you ask any questions. Before we proceed any further, please note that this session is being recorded and will be published by International Idea in their social media channels. Colleagues, we also have a disclaimer from International Idea that the statements, views, opinions expressed in the presentation do not necessarily represent the institutional position of International Idea, its Board of Advisors, or its Council of Member States. And I'll just introduce the panelists briefly, and we'll invite our first panelist to provide his presentation. Our first panelist this morning is a senior elections consultant from International Idea, Mr. Andrew Ellis, who's a consultant advisor on the design and implementation of electoral systems and processes and of constitutional frameworks. Successively head of electoral processes, director of operations, and founder Asia and the Pacific Director of International Idea. Andrew has edited and contributed to many idea electoral handbooks, including those covering electoral system design, electoral management design, voting from a broad direct democracy and electoral justice. He has worldwide experience as a technical advisor in democratic transitions, including long-term assignments in Indonesia, Cambodia, Bosnia, and Palestine. Good evening, Andrew, and welcome to the webinar. We also have the pleasure of the presence of the Permanent Secretary, Ms. Sima Sharama, from the Ministry of Local Government. Welcome, Sima. And we're also joined by Nilesh Lal, who's the Executive Director for Dialogue Fiji. Welcome, Nilesh. I'll hand straight over to you, Andrew, for your presentation. Benaka. Thank you, Anna. Can everybody hear me as well enough? We can hear you very well. Excellent. And thank you very much for the invitation to present today's webinar. A few thoughts in an important process of democratization, a process which I value not only in itself, but remembering a slightly further back part of my career when I served for four years as an elected councillor on a local authority in the north of England, representing a fairly poor ward in the middle of the city of Newcastle upon Tyne. From that firsthand experience, I very much emphasize the role that local government and locally elected government can play in improving the lives of citizens. May I start the presentation, which I'll just get up on and share. I hope the slides are now up on screen by saying that credible and legitimate elections of any kind are always based on a legal framework and a practical framework of implementation that is accepted by the local government all of the stakeholders in an election. And then looking at the legal framework, perhaps first three general observations. The first is that all of what I'll be saying today is based on knowing about common law in electoral systems, in particular in the way in which the UK's legal frameworks were historically constructed and developed. And that I know will go quite a long way in understanding these legislation and regulations, but it does not take into account any specific jurisprudence that is developed within Fiji or more widely in the Pacific yet. And I'm sure that some things may be found within that, which may put a gloss on or point one or two of the things that I might be about to say in a different direction. The second is that like any legal commentary, it is a commentary. The actual text of laws is fixed. The interpretation of those laws is definitively known when courts make decisions and deliver judgments. So there are things here which strongly appear to be the case, but which would be subject possibly to being discussed within the Fijian court system and perhaps finally being pronounced on by the Supreme Court. And the third thing is that in any political situation where there has been conflict over a period of many years, there's a lot of legislation about and different laws have been put in place by different power holders and different interests at different times in the procedure. And that inevitably means that all stakeholders are possibly more sympathetic to some of those laws than to others. That's not something that can be reflected or taken into account in assessing the legal framework. The legal framework assessment and the way in which the judiciary considers the legal framework has to work on the principle that all of the laws that are valid and have not been superseded are equal in status. So with those three overarching considerations, let me say a few things about the legal framework. Legal frameworks for local elections starts with the Local Government Act of 1972 and of the subsidiary regulations which are associated with it. And this is what formed the basis of previous municipal elections. Now that act remains in force, but the electoral aspects of it, of which there are not very many, there are four articles, four sections within it which deal specifically with elections contained quite a lot of things that look as if they are superseded by two more recent pieces of legislation, one of which is the Electoral Registration of Voters Act of 2012 and the other is the Electoral Act of 2014. Looking first at registration, coming at the beginning of the electoral process as the electoral cycle really kicks into gear. The core of the Registration of Voters Act of 2012 is the creation of the National Voter Register. And that's defined in the act. It says it, which says that it's a register of persons entitled to vote at an election, so far so good. What does an election mean in this context? The act tells us that it has the same meaning as in the Electoral Act of 2014. Switching over to look at that. Section two, which is the Definition Section, says that election includes elections prescribed in section 154 and the provisions of section 154 specifically include municipal elections within that. And section 154 also makes the PGM Elections Office responsible for them. This act contains an age for inclusion in the National Voter Register, which is 18. And I understand that that's also been included in a recent decision of the cabinet. Looking at all of these together, the provisions in the two sections newer acts are clearly not consistent with the voting age of 21 that is stated within the Local Government Act nor is it consistent with the landowner franchise contained in that act. The Local Government Act contains a provision in which the owner of land, the rate payer can be registered as a voter as well. Not surprising, it's something that used to exist in UK legislation until 1946. It's something that still exists in most of Australia. But it's not a qualification for inclusion in the National Voter Register. And so it looks to me as if the old landowner rate payer franchise that was contained in the Local Government Act has now been superseded and that there is one qualification to be registered as an elector on the NVR. And that's laid down within that act and is essentially a residence-based qualification with some specific other considerations to be taken into account. Going on from registration to nomination to candidates who can be elected members, candidates have to be on the electoral register throughout all of the legislation and that's a perfectly common place provision of qualification. What is more interesting in current debate is the question of whether there's a retirement age for elected members. There's nothing of this kind specified in the Local Government Act and looking round at more general global practice, any provision of this kind would be highly unusual. The general view taken is that if people are old but no good, then the solution is not to vote for them rather than to disqualify them from standing. It's not the same as the approach to civil servants of local authorities who usually are subjects to the same kind of formal retirement from employment provisions as civil servants nationally and indeed in parallel with employment legislation more generally. Next big interesting question from the Local Government Act is the electoral system and the traditional electoral system for Fijian municipalities is called the block vote. Standard and established electoral system gives each voter as many votes as there are vacancies and uses multi-member wards or districts. So if there are four vacancies, the voter can cast up to four Xs for up to four of the candidates on the ballot paper and then the four candidates with the highest individual circles are the ones who are elected. Again, this is a well-known traditional system and it can work very well where all of the candidates are individuals contesting on their own merits and their own platforms and are not connected with each other. It has a possibly rather different effect when candidates start to come together campaign on a common platform because if a group of candidates is saying vote for all of us, use your four votes for the four of us working together, then what may happen is that the most popular individual group of that kind has the four top votes and wins all the seats, meaning that other viewpoints within the community get no representation at all. This is obviously something that may be linked to party-based tickets that emerge if political parties are standing in local elections, but it's not only based on parties. This is something that can equally well happen when there's a group of independence who are working together. This persuades me to ask the question, is block vote in its traditional form something that will still work well for Pigeon local authorities now in a context where inclusion may be of importance? Now to look at the actual structure of the new elected local authorities and one of the problems that emerges from years without elected local government is that communities have moved on even if the authorities haven't. The wards drawn within the local authorities existing city and town boundaries date back to times between 1972 and 2011 and I suspect that there's been a substantial change in population since. There are provisions that deal with this. The Electoral Commission has the power to determine the number of councillors for each ward and this requires the issue of orders by the Electoral Commission. There are many of the current orders that are clearly published in laws of Pigeon, but it may well be that the balance of population between those different wards is now nothing like the same as it was when the wards were drawn. And so wards that gave one person one vote, one value when they were drawn may no longer be doing so and that poses the question is it necessary to get back to something closer to one person, one vote, one value by changing the representation of wards? With multi-member wards, it's a lot easier to use existing ward boundaries and change the number of councillors that wards elect to reflect the new population than it is to draw new ward boundaries which is always a very difficult process to do in a way that produces outcomes that are accepted as legitimate and credible. The basic reason for this is that there's no technical method that will draw you politically neutral boundaries. That makes the new boundaries clearly a very sensitive field in which consultation and public participation are going to be essential. Now, this is really only the first part of the discussion about one person, one vote, one value because the question of peri-urban areas arises, the areas where people have moved to on the edge of the existing towns and cities outside the boundary as those towns and cities have expanded as settlements as Fiji has become more urban. I tried to find some figures for this and the 2007 census is helpful in doing so. In 2007, 65% of urban area population were within the town and city authority boundaries and 35% were in the peri-urban areas adjacent. The 2017 census as far as I could find unfortunately doesn't have the same data in it but I suspect that peri-urban share has grown substantially since 2007. Now, what happens now in peri-urban areas? Authorities can deliver services on a contract basis but there's clearly no democratic input or accountability to that and there are questions about the clarity and the availability of funding. There is a provision that requires authorities to provide services to itake villages within the boundaries. This looks to be a huge area of discussion potentially. I'm guessing from peri-urban areas generally that there may be all sorts of patterns of formal and informal service delivery involving all sorts of people in peri-urban areas, some of which are funded, some of which are not, some of which are formal, some of which are not and that this is again going to be a field in which consultation and public participation and discussion are vital in acceptance of new boundaries and authorities. If you are going to extend authority boundaries, there is a procedure for it in the Local Government Act with a publication of a notice with an objection period, with advice and publication of advice by the Local Government Committee, appeals and then potentially appeals to the high court on a question of law. The significant thing about this is that it's a procedure that takes you potentially a minimum of three and a half months from publishing an initial notice to the Minister being able to issue an order which establishes the extension of the authority boundaries. When you've done that, again going back to the 35% now probably rather more population who live in periurban areas, it may be that warding arrangements are needed within the newly incorporated areas too and the Electoral Commission has powers to do this, but again it's a process that will take time and take discussion. Now a few thoughts on implementation and actually conducting elections. The first thing is that this is not as, I think it was once a local authority function. It's a job of the Fijian Elections Office. The Electoral Commission has the power to make rules. The Minister responsible for elections can make regulations to prescribe rules and procedures and the Local Government Act needs to be harmonized as far as possible with the procedures in the Electoral Act. This is an area that clearly needs some work and thought because some parts of the Electoral Act are quite specific parliamentary elections. The Electoral System for Parliament is very different and so the provisions for nominations are different. The provisions for ballot paper lay out certainly don't apply to block vote. The campaign rule is different. The counting and declaration is different. There are some parts however which can work for municipal elections. The sections on polling arrangements will work. The sections on postal voting and pre-poll voting look as if they will work and then there are some further sections which are rather in the middle. In some cases, the Electoral Act has made specific new provisions that don't appear in the Old Local Government Act framework. Very evidently, the ability for observers to be present at the poll and at the count is permitted by the Electoral Act but not in the previous Local Government framework. I suspect that the most important thing to say here is not only what one says generally about standards for Electoral Legislation but that clarity and consistency of interpretation is going to be important throughout which parts of the familiar procedure from parliamentary elections can and will be used, which parts can't, what are the new provisions that will be used in those areas. The Election Commission powers are to formulate policy and oversee the conduct of elections. The actual conduct of elections by the supervisor of elections supported by the Fijian Electoral Office includes municipal elections. Again, that's specified within the Act. Looking at an indicative implementation timeline, that suggests that on the actual practical side, there may be a base need of about eight months from starting the first activity on the ground which looks like probably recruitment of trainers to polling day. But there's nothing in the formal election timetable that suggests in the later stages that it can't mirror the timetable that parliamentary elections use, including the 45-day period between the issue of the writ and the budget. Also, elections cost money. Parliament needs to ensure and the Electoral Act makes it Parliament's job to ensure that the Fijian Electoral Office has a budget to conduct elections. So those overall are a few thoughts and considerations of the legalities and the practicalities in going down a very important road. It's not an easy process because there's a great deal of detail in it as there is in putting any election together. Most people, including a lot of people in the political system, don't really think about those details most of the time and leave them to experts in corners. And it's also sometimes true that what people intuitively believe about organizing elections and conducting elections isn't as easy as it looks or isn't always true. I hope that these thoughts add to the consultation the participatory process, the discussion that will help gain the kind of acceptance by stakeholders across the board that can make the upcoming local elections credible, legitimate, and a new start for elected local democracy in Fiji. Thank you. Thank you very much, Andrew, for that substantive presentation giving us a lot of food for thought. I'll hand over to Madam P.S., Miss Sima Sharma, for her presentation and for her response. Thank you, Sima. Thank you very much, Anna. And I must say that that presentation was very, very comprehensive and it did outline a number of issues that we are also contemplating on and very aptly captured in the international idea paper that they had presented. I don't have a detailed presentation as Andrew does, but I will try and sort of go through a few of the issues that we have been considering and I must say most of my issues have been sort of addressed or been brought to the fore by Andrew in his presentation. A number of things, obviously, we want to sort of go back and look at the whole idea as to why we need to have these elections. In Fiji, obviously, you haven't had municipal council elections since 2005. That was the last time a full-fledged having all the 13 municipalities covered. There were different times when it was held because back then it was not as very correctly pointed out by Andrew. It was not sort of run by a single authority. It was as in when the council decided to have the elections. A number of things back then obviously did not happen according to how rules and regulations were put in place. There have been certain discrepancies which obviously led to almost every time there was an election, there would be a dispute put in court. And election results were disputed or even the voter registration was disputed. Andrew pointed out right correctly, under section 11 of the Act, it does specify who can be the voter and what are the requirements. At this point in time, yes, it is inconsistent with the electoral act and the constitution when it comes to the age. Cabinet in January gave instructions in that area to say, look, we need to review the age and bring it consistent with the constitution and how voters at the national level. There is obviously still again a requirement of owner or occupier which is quite broad, then again quite limiting because it does say if there is a person who is an occupier he or she can only be elected as a voter, the occupier is in legal occupation. So according to international norms, that is a bit restrictive because it does eliminate certain people who are residents of a municipality from being elected. So when we look at the role of a municipal council, we would say, okay, what is their role? Their role is obviously the top most and highest governing body of a municipality and their job is obviously to provide services to people who sort of or look at the interest of people who live within towns and cities. Some of the things when people think about municipal councils is that their job is to do with garbage collection, that they have to make sure that they look after the beautification of the towns and cities. But one of the things that is forgotten is that the municipal councils actually is your conduit to economic growth. If your councils are not kind of function properly, if the systems of the processes are not similar or consistent, you will have issues. If the processes are not transparent, you won't have businesses thriving. You will not be able to create economic activity within those municipalities. So these are obviously some of the very critical policy consideration that has to be taken on board when we're working towards developing what systems and processes need to be put in place. So in terms of the findings of the paper, it's very much and very much appreciated. I must say that for international idea to present these findings to us because it does help give an independent opinion or an independent view of how everything looks and very much of what we do sort of identify as critical issues, the inconsistencies in the law, the areas that need to be reviewed. We've gone through all 13 municipalities as of last night we've had a series of consultations, we've had a lot of feedback and focusing as Andrew had pointed out some of the, you know, he's actually pointed out the three or four critical areas that we've been also going out and consulting on is with your electoral registration, your criteria for the candidates, your electoral system and also looking at, you know, what other areas that we could look at is even looking at, you know, nomination procedures, you know, how, you know, there were feedback that we've received saying that, oh, you know, what, what would party politics be involved? So if you look at the current act, it doesn't actually specify parties because you require to nominate people and the nomination process is obviously six to eight people within the ward would nominate you, you know, and these are six to eight electors. So people who are able to register as an elector would be the people nominating, say, Ami to contest the elections provided, and then obviously there'll be a scrutiny done with a qualifier. So, but, you know, it means individuals, if you look at the act, but, you know, there's always ways of going about that system. So, you know, we've had a lot of questions in that area, you know, whether we should specify. I mean, just last night, the people in Lemmy were very passionate about it. They had a very strong view. There's been a lot of discussions about, as, you know, saying, you know, the growth of the Perriever in areas around Fiji and also within a number of municipalities the growth of informal settlements who are within town boundaries. How do we treat them in this whole process? A number of how's what and how and how and what it's going to take us to do. So obviously, following Cabinet's decision and we had sort of, and the directive from Cabinet was first looking at the processes looking at the voter age, looking at even the term of council because there was at one point where the act said the term of council is four years. Then it was amended and then brought down to three years. Cabinet has obviously given instructions to say that it should, you know, go out and consult on it, but it should, it should be sort of consistent with the national process, you know, making it four years. Obviously, we don't want to cause confusion where, you know, elections happen at the same time, but, you know, it's a consistent process with the national elections. A lot of policy considerations that we need to sort of, from today, take into consideration before we prepare a roadmap for Cabinet. So our job as the ministry, and we're not working in isolation, we've got a working group that was actually established by Cabinet, which is chaired by the Permanent Secretary of Local Government and has the key implementing agencies, which is over the elections office, the finance people, Solicitor General's Office that's going to help us amend and all the municipality CEOs because we want to make sure that whatever data, information that we're using up to date, they're able to tell us how things sort of happen in their towns and cities and what are some of the critical considerations. So, and it obviously does allow the working group to get support of CSOs or development partners. In this process, obviously we've got two, three working, sort of operational groups that are working towards the process of developing a roadmap to elections. And these include the drafting group that has actually gone out and gotten feedback from stakeholders. We also have a group that looks at logistics, which is going to look at the cost, how are we going to go about, what are going to be the timelines. And the third group actually looks at policies, guidelines, and codes of conduct. It's been almost two decades since the last elections were held. And then in order for councils to sort of get used to this, I mean, they have been special administrators, but the way they were conducting themselves are very different. From three, if you look at Suva, you're going to have 20 people. It's from two to three to 20. So, which is a big jump, a big difference. And having a mayor, having your councillors who are going to be more involved in a number of things in terms of policy. So we need to set the codes of conduct and also looking at what would be the baseline policies that should be given the basic guidelines when it's to do with financial management, project management, looking at anti-corruption laws, sorry, policies and the number of other things. So there are three tracks sort of running simultaneously at the moment. And we have had feedback that maybe we should get these policies and code of conducts all sorted before we got elections. Obviously, that we have a presentation that we'll be giving to cabinet. There's been a lot of recommendations on a number of areas, but following these consultations in the 13 municipalities, which we sort of completed yesterday as of last night, you know, we will be going back to the working group with the different recommendations that we've received, sort of pointing out the pros and cons of it. And then the working group working towards a detailed roadmap that would be submitted with a cabinet paper to cabinet to give us further instructions. A lot of people have asked us questions, when is the elections going to happen? We've told them we cannot tell them right now because it's a decision of cabinet. There has been some dates being flagged around in media and but the final decision of when the elections are going to be held would have to be made by cabinet. Our job obviously has to be to ensure that we give the best policy advice to cabinet to make sure that as has been concluded by Andrew, we have to have a fair, a transparent and an appropriate election for councils. It's not elections for the sake of having elections. It's making sure it achieves what we, what the coalition government has set out to do is making sure that the people are able to choose who sits in their councils, who become their representatives, and they are easily able to, you know, say, look, they are, you know, they are chosen by us. So there's no, there's no complaints, you know, they have to serve us and whatever plans they make, it is, the people feel very close to it. So that's the whole idea of making sure that, you know, these elections happen in a very free, fair and transparent manner. So that's my little contribution to the discussions today. Thank you very much for giving me this opportunity to being part of this panel today and I'm looking forward to having good discussions. Thank you. Thank you very much, P.S. Seema, for your contribution and adding to the food for thought that we've got to kind of go over in our discussions this morning. I'll hand over to Nilesh, the Executive Director for Dialogue Fiji, Mr. Nilesh Lal, over to you for your presentation. Thank you. Sorry, Nilesh, you're still on mute. Do you want to unmute, please? Yeah, sorry about that. Yeah. Thank you very much, Ana. Very good morning to everybody that is joining. Now, one of the drawbacks of being the last speaker is that the people before you cover everything that you wanted to talk on. So I've had to change my speaking notes midway because, obviously, Andrew was very comprehensive. However, there are some very salient points that Andrew raised, which cannot be overemphasized. We have the situation where we want to have elections after a very long time. The government has expressed its intent to hold elections. In fact, the civil society has been agitating for it for a very long time, but what is very important, however, is that the elections are conducted properly and some of the timelines that have been provided so far or some of the dates that have been given are definitely not realistic because there's a lot of things that will need to be done before we can actually hold elections in Fiji after such a long time. Of course, you know, one of the most critical things would be the choice of electoral system. Now, we have the situation where there's a new constitutional order. There's also a new electoral framework that we're operating under. And as Andrew has very aptly pointed out, there might be a lot of conflicts that the existing legislation, which appears to be, I mean, existing legislation governing local government elections, which appears to be the local government act of 1972, might have been superseded in different, in various respects by the constitution that might no longer, I mean, provisions might no longer be in tandem with the new constitution. And then there are certain sections that might have been actually superseded by the new electoral act. So obviously these are some of the matters that will need to be clarified because you can't hold elections with that amount of uncertainties about what the laws, the legislative provisions are in relation to those. So that will obviously need to happen. And there is something that we cannot entirely trust political actors to, to with electoral system design is a exercise that needs a whole of society approach. Of course, you know, political, if political actors were to do it themselves, they could very well devise a system that will advance their political agendas that would obviously increase the prospects of those empowers of, you know, for the political party in control and so forth. So that is why it is absolutely critical that electoral system design in particular is something that is done properly. Now the electoral system that we have under the local government act of 1972 is a blockboat system. And blockboat systems which are essentially priority systems might not be the most desirable. I mean, they might not lead to the most desirable outcomes for a ethnically polarized society like VG. And in fact, we have seen it happen in the past where there was dominance of one or two parties based on race, of course. So I hope, you know, there is something that can be properly debated upon in the public sphere. And that is something, I mean, I would personally say I move towards a PR system, which essentially is the system that we're all also using for parliamentary elections in PG. And there are many advantages of adopting a PR system. One of which, of course, is that then the local government elections saved as training grounds for the national elections. One of the things that we've seen happen recently, I mean, in the last elections is that there has been a very significant reduction in the number of women members of parliament. In fact, we've gone from a high of 21.6% in I think 2021 to just around 11% in this new parliament after that was retained after the last elections. So there is something that we need to be very concerned about. And just because the stakes are arguably lower in local government elections, political parties, which I still believe will be the main one of the key stakeholders in local government elections, political parties perhaps will be more inclined to include more women candidates. And then, you know, there can be special programs that can be run to ensure that we are able to groom female candidates for the national parliament. So there's a lot of opportunities that we have in the current context, you know, and if the political will is there, if there's a will to do the right thing, I think we should be able to devise a electoral system that would save the best interest of all VGNs. And, and I hope that is how things will eventually turn out to be. Now, there's absolutely no way we can hold elections in September. As has been reported in the media that the government intends to do so. As Andrew has alluded to, they obviously need to be budgetary allocations down to the VGN elections. Obviously, I think it will cost somewhere around 10 to 20 million dollars for us to conduct elections for the 13 municipalities that exist in VG. And then, but before we get down to administering the elections, there's a lot of groundwork that will need to happen. And this is something that cannot be just done overnight. There has to be involvement of experts like Andrew, for instance, there has to be involvement of local interest groups in the entire process. So I think it's, it's, it's very, very much important that we seize this opportunity and be able to ensure that when we eventually do hold elections, that they are actually able to lead to a context, I mean, lead to a situation where the, the, where democracy is the winner, where the quality of governance that follows also improves. And then we have a system that is representative of the people's will, that is, you know, that ensures transparency, accountability that empowers communities to participate in local decision making. And it also is mindful of the divisions that we have in society, the, the other dynamics pertaining to race and so forth. So that we, we, we end up, it leads to municipal councils that are very inclusive, that are very diverse in nature. So that's my contribution to today's discussion. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Nilesh. Wonderful contributions from all of our three panelists this morning, giving us a lot of food for thought around the legalities, the practicalities, also the opportunities that are being provided right now. And I like the way that Nilesh particularly picked up on and spoke about the representation of women and how do we use the local government process as an opportunity to get more women into the national, into parliament. So what we're going to do is just open up, we've got a couple of questions that have come in via the chat. So if it's all right with the panelists, I'll just go straight to the questions and then invite you to share your thoughts again in just responding to some of the questions that are coming up from those who are tuning in this morning. So the first question is from Solomon Edwin and it's directed to Andrew, looking at the number of gaps in the laws. I think you might have spoken to this a little bit afterwards but maybe just to go over it Andrew, how long do you think it will take to set all the laws in order to conduct the elections effectively? Thank you for that question. It's quite a difficult question to answer because the key to this is the amount of time that it takes for the different stakeholders to discuss and for some kind of consensus to be reached if possible and then the time that it takes the government and the cabinet and parliament to pass all of the legislation changes that emerge following on from that there are clearly also some lower level regulation things that are required anything to do with expanding boundaries to take in peri-urban areas I've talked about the time table for that for example there are a few minor points which need to be dealt with not at government level necessarily but certainly at electoral commission or equivalent level one example is that the Racky Racky town was as far as I can see created in 2010 which means that it was never set up with a council and so presumably somebody has to decide and put a piece of regulation in place that determines the existence of the council how many members it should have and what the warding arrangements for that will be so difficult to give a definite answer and also difficult to take into account the fact that where there are different interests involved the usual dynamics of such processes is that nothing moves for a long time and then suddenly in the last stages of discussions a huge number of things all get settled very very quickly up against a deadline or even actually after a practical deadline wonderful thank you Andrew so the response is there's no definite answer it's difficult to given all the challenges so our next question is from Vicky Prakash so how can the municipal elections in Fiji take place without political influence and interference and that's a question for all three just to get your views well I think it's invariably a political process right but if the person means that there would be undue influence by political actors well that will all depend on what are the safeguards in the system so giving ministers giving the minister extensive powers wide-ranging powers obviously will have an impact on this so I think there's some of the things that can be looked at in the new I mean if there's an amendment of the act however if there's an independent body like the Fijian elections office that would be responsible for the process then I don't think there would be undue political influence but everything I mean a lot of it will depend on the electoral framework would any of the other panellists like to contribute to that question yes I generally agree with what Nilesh has just said because when local government was first set up and I think this is unique to Fiji then it was in fact practical for the discussion surrounding communities and local elections to really take place primarily or almost exclusively at local level in a world in which there are a lot more communications in which there's continuous media activity and reporting in which there are social media channels I think it's actually not practical to think that you can conduct a local authority or a local election within a bubble that excludes the wider political process that in fact is even more the case when a lot of what local authorities do under the existing legislation has to then go up to the ministry as well and so the question is how one develops procedures, codes of conduct and at a deeper level divisions of power within local authorities national authorities and others that makes those external influences rather more controlled the I think the days in which you could exclude external influence entirely have gone and won't come back Thank you Thank you Andrew Okay so our next Seema did you want to a PS? Madam PS do you have any response to that? Thanks Anna I think Nilesh and Andrew have sort of answered that question quite well so I don't have anything else to that Thank you for procedures, divisions of power making sure that the safeguards are in place so this question is directed to you Madam PS what's the general feeling from the public in relations to the local government elections and is the ministry also looking at developing guidelines for councils to help in their day-to-day operations? Thanks Thanks for that question Anna Yeah as we've gone around and spoken to people in public consultations there's a lot of enthusiasm everyone's actually very much looking forward to these local government elections and they have had they definitely had they say as to what we should look at how we should look at things in terms of when we're going to go back to drafting because what we presented to them was as is what the current systems and processes are we want your view so it was taking in all the views and recommendations and then going back and looking at how things would be drafted but there's been a lot of enthusiasm and it feels good from everyone that we've sort of met and spoken to in terms of developing guidelines I did mention that it was a specific pool that was looking into these details a specific working group and we are appreciative of the support that we've actually gotten from the commonwealth local government forum in drafting the guidelines and the code of conduct as you know there has to be clear demarcation of the role of the mayors and the councillors and the role that of the CEO or what previously used to be called town clerks it has to be you know how the council needs to function and how do and then basically how the operations of things happen so whatever policy or you know strategic direction are given you know whatever is approved by the council how does it sort of translate into day to day operations so we have to make sure that those things are very clear to avoid any conflicts in future we will do obviously our best to get it perfect but you know as we go but as we said we're going to make sure that these policies and guidelines are consistent if you have a look at the current regulations every council sort of had their own systems and processes regulated to how a council conducted itself but we want to make sure we create a consistent at least a consistent platform so yeah they're definitely going to be guidelines being developed thank you thank you very much PS so the next question is to Nilesh do you think the local government elections should happen at party line well that has always been the case in Fiji so but actually the question is a rather complex one and there might be different opinions on the meta for instance on one hand people might argue that party based local government elections can provide clarity to voters on the political platforms maybe ideologies of different parties which will make it easier for parties to gain a majority in the local government also party based local government elections may also help to promote accountability as parties would be held responsible for their performance in office on the other hand some might argue that party based local government elections can create division and polarization in local communities as political parties may prioritize their own interest over those of the communities it can also limit the number of candidates or the range of candidates that can be elected as parties may only nominate candidates that conform to the party line rather than individuals with unique and diverse maybe unconventional perspectives one of the drawbacks obviously of having PR system is that the independent candidates will have a lower chances of electoral success so yeah but I think if you consider the history of local communities what we can definitely expect is that it will be fought on party lines thank you very much Nilesh okay so the next question why does the government want to organize the municipal elections as soon as possible I would assume that's been directed to us Anna just to say I don't think 18 years is soon since the last municipal council elections have been held the fact is it's about making sure that you know the commitment of the coalition government is to make sure that the responsibility of the municipalities highest governing body should be put back to the councillors and those councillors who are elected by the people I think that was the whole idea and that section that was brought in around 2008 or 2009 that looked at the appointment of special administrators also has a provision in it that the day the electoral commission announces the date of elections the special administrators sees to operate so there has been you know it's the government's intention to make sure that the people of this country are able to choose their own municipal council representatives who they are representatives at the level so I don't think 18 years is as soon process has been a while so you know it's about time the process needs to start thank you thank you very much P.S. so this is I think more of a comment from Rajesh Kumar there needs to be political will to expedite municipal elections as it's been long overdue for the sake of accountability transparency and good governance procedures so I think that just kind of reiterates the point that you made P.S. we've got another question from Mr Satish Kumar funding for the funding for the council is by rate pairs generally shouldn't the affairs of the councils be exclusively decided by the rate pairs if not then all those who vote and have a say in the affairs of the council by paying as well including residents and informal occupants not sure if that question makes sense does it to any of the panellists so funding is generally by the rate pairs shouldn't the affairs of councils be exclusively decided by the rate pairs if not those who vote and have a say in the affairs of the council should be paying as well including residents and informal occupants yes that does make sense as a question and it's actually a very important debate as to who is responsible for paying for services if it is the desire of the government that people should be able to choose their own representatives then the usual interpretation of people is rather wider than just rate pairs and there's while you can construct a logic in which all services are paid for only by their users only those who have children pay for education services and schools only those who are sick paying for doctors and hospitals and so on which is very much an individual responsibility rather than a community responsibility it is a principle that usually does not work anything like as well because those who actually need the services are probably going to be in the least good position to be able to pay for them at the point when they need them now when Satish Kumar says that if it's not decided exclusively by the rate payers if it is decided by the people by the community because it is a community responsibility to provide services for the community as a whole even though not all the members of the community all of those services at any one time then yes that might well down the track points to a funding mechanism for local authorities that does not find itself restricted to the paying of rates there may be a different funding base for people as a whole and there's also the question of local authorities being able to charge for certain services that they might deliver that I suspect is a discussion down the track rather than a discussion for the holding of local elections in the immediate future discussion we could take. Thank you Andrew. Did you have something you wanted to contribute to that? Thanks I think that has been an area of discussion during most of our consultations as I had pointed out about the occupier and the owner and there were a lot of there's been two sides of the whole thing there's been a lot of feedback about that all residents should be allowed to vote whether you're a rate payer or not whilst there's been strong objections that only rate payers should vote but the act currently does not say rate payers it's quite open and it's a broad but obviously these are things that we will be taking into consideration and the feedback when making recommendations back to cabinet about drafting. Thank you. Thank you very much PS we've just had to excuse himself to run off to another appointment so thank you Nilesh for your wonderful contributions this morning we've got lots of questions coming in so if it's okay with PS and Andrew if we could just work through the next couple of questions and see how we go I don't know whether we'll be able to get through everything before we wrap up at 10.30 but if it's alright with the Andrew and Simac I'll carry on so the next question is from Charnasa who just asks that this says this will be a great opportunity for young people to participate in the democratic process in politics will there be a need again for political parties to register for the election on the municipal elections that's the question. Yes please go ahead. Thank you definitely Charnasa has a very good point with regards to the fact that it would be great for you to participate and we definitely want youth participation you know one of the important things that actually Nilesh had highlighted about you know representation of women but we've also had feedback during the consultations about setting up quotas not just for women but you know for the youth people of disabilities the marginalized society you know so having maybe like a quota set aside but you know obviously these are things that need to be considered with a number of other policy consideration we also have you know we were actually looking forward for a lot more youth participation at the consultations but wherever the youth did participate they did really had a lot of things to contribute to and a lot of very good ideas so as we go as we've gone around this first round of consultations and as we move towards drafting and other processes drafting the roadmap and stuff there will be other opportunity where the youth can contribute and we look forward to the youth participating in these elections when they happen because as an elector your voting age is obviously could be brought down to 18 so that means that you could be one of the people who could qualify to be part of be a candidate for the council so the youth is the future with regards to the need for political parties to register that obviously would be a decision made further down the line as to how things unfold and whether you know the relevant act of the you know the elections office the party registration or you know whether that would sort of have an impact in terms of the drafting of regulations for the municipal council elections thank you may I add to that there's it occurs to me that there may be a link to the previous discussion here because I would guess that a lower proportion of young people are ratepayers that is true of people as a whole and so one of the reasons that may point towards adopting all citizens who are registered as the electorate is that that includes young people in a way in which a ratepayer only franchise of any kind would not yes thank you thank you Andrew for making that connection back to the earlier question we're going into we're fastly reaching our time limit in terms of the time limit so maybe just one more question and this is from Aman thank you to all the respective panelists for your profound contributions local government elections have been convened after a lapse of 18 years the dynamics have changed considerably as one has alluded a new electoral system and constitutional arrangement is in place which electoral system would be conducive to becoming local government elections and having constituency based wards of open list proportion system and this is a question for any of the panelists would like to respond maybe Andrew yes if you are taking a decision that the the political environment and the way in which communities in Fiji now work mean that there will be groupings of people whether formalised through parties or not fighting elections then that does make a case for looking at alternatives to block vote if the aim is to encourage inclusion and for the new local authorities to work in the interests of the whole community and be accepted by the whole community then it's important to emphasise principles of inclusion then yes you are looking at developing some form of proportional system and given that local elections do very definitely wish to support individual candidates and not only parties or tickets then yes that would probably need to be an open list system of some kind so there's a policy discussion here as to what is appropriate for representation generally and there's then a technical discussion to design the details of that system to meet the outcomes that's something that will take a little bit of time but with some views of what the political needs are actually important wonderful thank you Andrew just highlighting the very technical aspects of deciding on a local on an appropriate system which in response to that question so we've got one more minute but I think I just want to read out a question that's come in from one of the participants this morning who's talking about politics and political with negative views the reality is that politics is a part of everyday life and each advocacy activity about allocation of goods and services is political so politics is not just about political parties and this needs to be explained to the electorate so that's I think is a statement from thank you for that statement and maybe just one more question and 30 before we wrap up what are the next steps after local consultations and perhaps some timelines on the next activities I think you went through this in your presentation but maybe you would just like to provide that before we wrap up this morning thanks for the question Anna so we are in the process now developing a paper to the working group which will then go through the recommendations decide on what how it's going to be presented back to cabinet because we need to get back to cabinet with a roadmap of what will be done what are the processes so it's the drafting the registrations the awareness and a number of other activities at this point in time I definitely cannot give you what could be timelines because I don't want to pre-empt what the decision of cabinet would be I could give it to you but then cabinet would have its own decision so at this point in time I will not be able to give you timelines but there is definitely a draft really in terms of how we are going to go about all the processes but as and when obviously cabinet makes a decision it is cabinet does make it sort of public as to what the processes would be so people will be informed in advance of how the processes will go about thank you very much Madam PS okay so we're 1031 so we'll bring it to a close we're not able to go through all of the questions but I just expressed appreciation to all of the participants who have sent in some questions this morning I think what we'll try and do with idea is take all the questions down and find a way of communicating this response through the work that idea does in the pacific and in Fiji and I guess just as we wrap up there's a statement from one of the panelists or one of the participants who is saying this is not a question just an expression of my deep appreciation for the panelists for the wonderful discussion which is now broadened by understanding elections in general so thank you Andrew thank you PS and we'll now bring it to a close and just some closing remarks on the regional ideas Asia and the Pacific regional office again would like to thank all the speakers and the audience for joining this live event and we sincerely hope that through the discussions that everybody's people have gained knowledge about local government elections and I think one of our participants has said that and what to envisage in the coming months and we ask that you please look out for dates for the next webinar and we look forward again to your active engagement as being recorded pull out all the questions and find ways in which we can communicate that back to everybody that's joined us but thank you Andrew thank you madam PS for just the wonderful lots of food for thought around just the complexities of having local government elections given the announcement that has so called been made for September and October looking at how very practical or impractical that may be some of the challenges with the legislation but also I think some of the opportunities which are provided to us particularly for you know as we go through this this time and particularly I think because I'm a gender person for more women's representation in local government elections and hopefully that will lead to more representation at the national level so sincerely when I cover a level thank you for wonderful discussion and we look forward to the next one and thank you to all our participants have joined us have a good day and thank you Andrew thank you PS thank you thanks bye have a good day Andrew bye