By Kelvin Anthony, RNZ Pacific regional correspondent
The Fijian Elections Office has given the green light to 342 candidates from nine political parties and two independents to contest the December 14 general election.
Twelve candidates have been rejected and two have withdrawn.
Elections Supervisor Mohammed Saneem said his office had received a total of 356 nominations after candidate nominations closed on Monday.
Saneem said four parties submitted nominations for 55 candidates, which included FijiFirst, SODELPA, the People’s Alliance and the National Federation Party.
The ruling FijiFirst party and the People’s Alliance have all its 55 candidates confirmed to contest the 2022 elections, while the National Federation Party and SODELPA have 54 candidates approved.
The Fiji Labour Party has 42 approved candidates, Unity Fiji has 38, We Unite Fiji has 20, All Peoples Party has 14, and New Generation Party has 5.
“In this election, there are 56 females who have been nominated, and there are 287 males that will be contesting the election. In comparison in 2018, we have 56 females and 179 males,” Saneem said.
“So the male-to-female ratio is 83 percent are males and 16 percent females.”
There will be two independent candidates — both males.
The number of people contesting the polls is higher than in the 2018 election — which had 235 candidates.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.