From what you've seen and heard throughout the campaign period, what's the biggest issues that voters are focused on this election?

With the Middle East conflict, obviously, we have seen an impact on small island nations, and Cook Island is not spared as well.

We are at the end of the supply chain, so we do absorb a lot of additional costs.

And by the time the goods land here, the prices do drop.

have an impact as well as you know price of energy through the increase of petrol has affected the people so cost of living obviously is the number one issue as well as i believe public service infrastructure whether be roads or out island developments and another issue that has cropped up now is there has been a bit of debate about it and a strong criticism i guess opposition to it as well which is the implementation of water charges government is providing a certain amount for free per month 38 000 liters a month and after that people or domestic users to pay a certain fee for it for use water and that was not in place before but since there has been an upgrade in the in the water system and a setup of a water authority called this fee has come in so there has been a bit of a pushback from some people and there has been some concerns about misinformation around that issue as well

on that note then What role has misinformation on social media played during this campaign? Do you think it's been difficult for voters to identify fact from fiction on some of these issues?

People now, more and more people relying or using social media networks like Facebook and others.

It has obviously become an issue not only in the Cook Islands but in many countries.

So, what does it actually look like at the moment, Rashnil? Like, you know, the current make-up of Cook Islands Parliament, like, does the opposition somehow maybe pose a threat?

So at the moment we have the Cook Islands party with 12 seats and they have been joined by three independents.

So that takes them to 15 seats.

And then we got the Democratic Party, which has five seats.

The independents got three seats.

And then we have one Cook Islands with one seat.

So it's safe to say that The independents have chosen to partner with the Cook Islands party following the last elections and that gave them the majority to actually form government.

Do you think that's going to influence voters?