03 Jul 2018

The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) chief information education officer, Mr Dintle Rapoo says the uncertainty on whether to use EVM’s (Electronic Voting Machine) or ballot papers in the next general elections put them in a tight corner. 

According to Mr Rapoo, the prevailing situation was due to a pending court case by Botswana Congress Party (BCP) challenging the constitutionality of Electoral amendments Act of 2016 together with a similar case lodged by National Amalgamated Local and Central Government and Parastatal Workers Union(NALCGPWU). 

Mr Rapoo who was updating Ghanzi District Council about the preparations recently said IEC would have to wait for the fate of the bill to know whether to use ballot papers or EVM in the coming national elections.

However, Mr Rapoo said that time was not in their side regardless of a decision to be taken, saying that even if EVM was to be used, procurement process needed over 6 month to be done, similarly if ballot papers awee to be used they would still need more time to do the preparations. 

“We do not print ballot papers on ordinary paper. We use special paper that is manufactured first within our standards and it takes about six month to be manufactured and procurement process also requires extra time,” he stated.  

On the by-elections, he said there were more by-elections recently than before. We had 15 and the 16^th is coming, 11 were for council wards while four were for parliamentary constituencies.” 

From the by-election, he said voter’s turnout was low, despite their tirelessly efforts on voters’ education and as such have recently started a post-election survey to establish the basis of low voter turn out. 

“The situation went as bad as 39 per cent at Mochudi East constituency against 86.1 per cent during general election,” he said. 

He was worried that in the past by-elections, they committed a lot of time making duplications of registration cards and as such appealed to the voters to always keep their registration cards safe after general elections in case they may be needed for a by-election or referendum before next elections. 

 “Even in instances of snap elections, you will still use the same cards.” Mr Rapoo warned politicians to desist from keeping voters’ registration cards and identity cards because it was an offence to do so. 

He informed the council that the national voters’ registration would be on September 3 until November 11. 

Responding to the call from the council that IEC should demonstrate to court the importance of the case, Mr Rapoo said they did not have influence over court, but had recently met with the President regarding the effecting of the electoral act amendments. 

Responding to the update, Councilor of Bosele ward, Mr Onalethata Ngati said IEC should approach electoral issues cautiously and with proper consultation. 

He said they should not rush to make decisions that could compromise the elections and advised that election were expensive to run. 

Councilor Tshabang Jonnanes of East/West Hanahai thanked IEC for updating the council about issues regarding elections and appealed to the electoral body to always update council if there were new developments. ENDS