24 Oct 2014

Voting got off to a smooth start in the Francistown East constituency despite minor glitches.

Three political parties are contesting the constituency which Mr Phandu Skelemani of the Botswana Democratic Party won in the 2009 general elections.

Ms Theresa Mmolawa represents the Umbrella for Democratic Change, Mr Buti Billy represents the Botswana Democratic Party and Mr Morgan Moseki the Botswana Congress Party.

The constituency has 10 196 registered voters, six council wards and 29 polling stations. The council wards are Satelite South, Satelite North, Donga, Central, Itekeng and Ntshe.

At Donga Junior Secondary School polling station there were long meandering queues as voting started at 6:30am.

A majority of voters were youthful and middle aged and some waited to cast their votes while seated on chairs.

At around 7:30am, IEC officials had assisted about 75 voters. At Maradu Primary School, Satelite clinic and Satelite South polling voting was going on well.

However, the situation was different at Selepa SHHA polling station where voters complained about sluggish polling officers.

By 8:30am, two hours after the polls started, only 10 people had voted and voters who had been queuing since 5:00am, especially the elderly did not take kindly to the delay.

They also complained that some voters especially the youth wanted to skip the queue despite arriving late. Some complained that the heat was taking its toll on them since they had been standing in the queue for far too long.

Police and poling officers had to calm them down before proceeding with assisting them to vote. The returning officer for Donga ward, Ms Lore Lungisani, explained that voting was proceeding smoothly and noted that they had received an overwhelming number of voters at Donga community school and the Donga Kgotla. ENDS