12 Jun 2018

Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) is hard at work preparing for 2019 elections even though still uncertain of voting method to be used, IECs chief elections officer Mr Dintle Rapoo has told Central District councillors, Tuesday.

Addressing the CDC councillors, Mr Rapoo revealed that the minister for presidential affairs, governance and public administration has not yet served commencement date for the electoral amendment act of 2016 and therefore all the amendments could not be implemented until then.

“This is why we are not using electronic voting machines in the bye elections post 2016 amendment act. Had the commencement date been set already we would then be obliged to put to use the EVMs,” said Mr Rapoo who also informed councillors about the electoral amendment bill of 2017.

He said that parliament was expected to deliberate on the bill during the current sitting. The bill includes voter varification paper audit trail as a component of the electronic voting system.

The paper trail is said to enhance transparency and could be used as evidence in case of petitions.

That being said, the chief elections officer said despite a devoid of commencement date of the electoral amendment act of 2016 registration period for 2019 elections is set for September 3- November 11, 2018 where, according to statistics from national and civil registration office, about  1 592 350 Batswana are eligible to register to vote in 2019.

Mr Rapoo said that they stretched the registration period wider for in case the electoral amendment act of 2016 came into force. However, the chief elections officer said that in case the commencement date of the act was not set, his office will continue with the current arrangement and set the supplementary registration dates.

Though the chief elections officer conceded to challenges of registering all those in the voting bracket, he was upbeat that the registration period has been widely publicised in such platforms as government gazette and other media.

The process of engaging out of school youth as registration clerks and supervisors was ongoing for a successful exercise, Mr Rapoo said. He said the current registration method was the best currently available.

As a result, Mr Rapoo challenged councillors and their political organizations to put up concerted efforts in ensuring that Batswana register to vote in great numbers.

Despite pleading with politicians to rally qualifying Batswana to register in great numbers, Mr Rapoo warned them against some malpractices that contravened the electoral laws.

He warned politicians and their organizations against keeping Omang and voter registration cards of their members, saying this could attract penalties as a six months imprisonment or a fine of P100 in the current dispensation.

However, in the electoral amendment act yet to commence, offenders will be fined P7500 or a six months jail term.

He also noted as disturbing a practice by many polling agents and party representatives to leak figures during the voting process and tallying of voters against the voters roll so as to call or even collect those still left behind. This, the elections officer said was against the secrecy expected in the voting process. To that he also spelt the resultant penalties.

Despite the ongoing preparations, Mr Rapoo informed councillors of the impediments lying ahead of them.

He said that his commission has experienced an unprecedented number of bye-elections since 2014 general elections, many of which were necessitated by deaths. Already there has been 14 bye-elections of which 11 were for council whilst three were for parliamentary seats.

This coming weekend IEC will conduct elections for a parliemantry seat at Moshupa-Manyana constituency to fill a vacant seat left by the ascendency of then MP Mr Mokgweetsi Masisi to presidency. Yet another council bye-election will be held at Ramokgwebana polling district in July.

Amongst a deluge of challenges, Mr Rapoo revealed that Botswana Congress Party has approached the courts challenging the constitutionality of the electoral amendment act. Similarly, National Amalgamated Local and Central Government and Parastatal Workers Union too have challenged certain aspects of the act.

These cases have been seen as affecting negatively preparations for the 2019 elections. ENDs