NAURU – The 8000 registered voters on Nauru went to the polls yesterday after what independent observers say were free and fair election campaigns, despite disagreement between government and opposition candidates over campaign advertising.

Opposition politicians earlier this week said they had been prevented from holding public rallies ahead of the election, and that they could not advertise in local government-owned radio and television media.

“The government is using the government media, the local media to put out propaganda and to put out advertisements, and we do not have access to the same facilities,” said former president and opposition candidate Sprent Dabwido.

In a statement, the Nauru government labelled the claims “childish” and “desperate political point scoring”, and said by law no political advertising is allowed to be broadcast on Nauruan radio or television.

“It is laughable how they are attempting to use foreign media to make untrue claims against this government,” Nauru’s communications minister Shadlog Bernicke said.

“It simply shows how desperate they are and how willing they are to trash our country internationally and how unfit they are to govern.”

However, Dabwido has countered saying that there is no law against broadcasting political advertising, and said incumbent candidates were using the medium.

“There’s government clips, ads, promoting themselves and what they’ve achieved – they play that on the TV, so there is government ads.”

But Nauru’s Electoral Commissioner Joseph Cain said it is an offence for any candidate to use government resources for campaigning, and he knew of no candidates advertising on Nauru television.

The co-chair of the Pacific Freedom Forum, Titi Gabi, said electoral observers could not declare the election fair if there wasn’t full and free access to all news media.

The Forum’s other co-chair, Monica Miller, said the Nauru government must remember that state media was not their media as it’s paid for by the public, including the Opposition.

The Forum also criticised the two year suspension of five Opposition members from the last parliament, which it said cancelled the voice of the people.

The Commonwealth Secretariat and the Pacific Islands Forum have sent observers to the island at the invitation of the government, and the vote is being overseen by a newly established electoral commission.

“So far what we have seen has been pretty much normal,” said former Kiribati president Anote Tong, who is leading the Commonwealth Secretariat’s observer team.

“People have the opportunity of both speaking for government and against government, and nothing has indicated that there are any pressures to suggest that some candidates are not being given the opportunity to speak,” Tong said.

The country’s opposition politicians have been in conflict with the government for more than two years, after five of them were suspended from the island nation’s 19-member parliament.

Three were suspended from the parliament for speaking to foreign media, while two others were removed for behaving in a disruptive way in the parliament building.

A protest out the front of the parliament in June last year led to three MPs being arrested, while one other was prevented from leaving the country after having his passport cancelled.

Tong said he hopes the country’s politicians are able to mend ties once the election is over.

“I truly hope so. They’ve got very, very smart people running for parliament, and I think they need to put their energies together and I really hope that they can begin to work together very soon after the election is over.

“I think it’s important, not just for Nauru but I think for most of the small island countries where we don’t have the energy and the resources to be focusing too much on confrontation and conflict,” he said.

Sixty seven candidates, four of whom are women, are competing for 19 parliamentary seats across Nauru’s eight multi-member constituencies.

With 12 polling stations opened yesterday voters were asked to rank candidates in order of preference.

Voters have been enrolled automatically and failure to cast a ballot carries a $15 fine.

Results were expected to be available on a website of the newly established and independent Nauru Electoral Commission, election.com.nr, on Sunday morning.

- PNC sources