Poll shows Fiji Election Outcome Foregone Conclusion--but not if Rabuka and Prasad are right

Razor-Fii Sun poll 6 October       pn118

Most changes between the latest Razor-Fiji Sun poll published on 6 October and the previous poll are small and not statistically significant because they could be due to sampling error.  If the poll is even close to accurate, the election results are a foregone conclusion. Fiji First will win.  

But not if SODELPA's Rabuka and NFP's Prasad  aren't daydreaming. (See AUT's Pacific Media Centre journalist interviews at the end of the posting.) 

SODELPA's Sitiveni Rabuka was up from 10 to 14% as preferred PM and NFP  Dr Biman Prasad was up from 2 to 6%. Fiji First's Voqere Bainimarama dropped from 74 to 68%. 

Other results were SODELPA's Ro Teimumu 6%, HOPE's  Tupou Draunidalo and Fiji Labour Party’s Aman Ravindra-Singh 3%, and Unity's Savenaca Narube dropped from 1% to zero.

In the party battle, Fiji First was way ahead and seems most likely to form the next government without any assistance from a coalition partner as some commentators had speculated.  SODELPA, and NFP with 9%,  are also assured of seats in Parliament. The HOPE party is an outside possibility.  The FLP and Unity Fiji seem unlikely to reach the 5% threshold to win a seat in Parliament.

In the 2014 election Fiji First took 59.2% of the vote and won 32 seats, SODELPA took 29.2% and won 15 seats and NFP took  5.5% and won 3 seats.  The Razor-Fiji Sun poll suggests a similar margin for Fiji First, a slight drop for SODELPA and a slight rise for the NFP.  In other words, not much change.   

But read the contrary views below:

-- ACW

Related

Pacific Media Centre's Sri Krishnamurthi interviewed SODELPA's Sitiveni Rabuka and NFP's Dr Biman Prasad.

Sri Krishnamurthi is a journalist and Postgraduate Diploma in Communication Studies student at Auckland University of Technology. He is attached to The University of the South Pacific’s Journalism Programme, filing for USP’s Wansolwara News and the AUT Pacific Media Centre’s Asia Pacific Report.

Here are extracts:

Rabuka

“I’m looking at, at least 28 seats, which gives us a majority. I have calculated on the basis of the 18 seats that we held. We won 18 seats but then lost three – two to debt and one to imprisonment,” said the enigmatic leader of SODELPA.

Prasad

“We are hoping to get a good number of seats, if not, the majority of seats. And we are being realistic because we got three seats in the last election, but strange things have happened in politics.

“We may not need another party. We have said we are fighting the election on our own. As for a coalition, you can ask the other parties who they are going to go with.