When asked if he was concerned that criticism over the Wednesday night “glitch” could undermine confidence in the 2022 General Election, Supervisor of Elections Mohammed Saneem launched into a tirade about “how Fijian elections work”.

The question was asked by overseas media during a media conference at the counting centre on Thursday.

“Before elections happen, there’s a lot of criticism of the process designed to tell the voters ‘don’t go’,” Mr Saneem said.

“Exactly four years ago, on the very next day after the election concluded, a similar lot of people, the same people who were addressing you today, addressed you again with anomalies but they did not have evidence.

“Today, after the election, one day after, the same thing has happened, so we were ready for this.

“We knew that immediately after the election there will be a lot of list of things that will be collated by the parties and they will raise it as issues.

“Let me tell you, the results are not final yet, it is still ongoing, there are 56,000-plus votes that are being counted here that have not been reflected into the final results and the final results could very well be different from what you currently see on the app. So it is too early to make that call.”

A “glitch” on Wednesday night resulted in the Fijian Elections Office results app being taken down after discovery of anomalies in some candidates’ votes. Prior to the “glitch”, the People’s Alliance was ahead of the FijiFirst party.

When the app was restored, the ruling party had taken the lead – resulting in claims by opposition political parties calling for a manual count of votes.