27 Sep 2018

Principal elections officer for Tutume region, Ms Basadi Ntshutelang has urged Batswana to register every day of the week, including weekends.

She made the appeal during Party Liaison Committee (PLC) meetings in Tutume and Nata recently. 

Ms Ntshutelang said since the national registration exercise commenced on September, they have realised a trend where on weekends, in particular Sundays, polling stations recorded zero registration, which she said was worrisome.

Furthermore, she highlighted that during the first week of registration, a high number of people registered, noting that for the nine polling districts of Nkange constituency they recorded over 3 000 people in that week.

She however noted that in the second week, the number drastically dropped by almost 1 000 as by the end of the week only 2 000 had registered and that the trend continued into the following week. 

To date, she said they have registered almost 6 700 people from the anticipated 15 000 plus considering the expected first time voters.

Ms Ntshutelang appealed to the PLC to help sensitise and encourage Batswana to register to vote in next year’s general elections. 

She further emphasised that Batswana should not drag their feet to register now with the anticipation that there might be supplementary registration. 

She added that since the majority of people were not working on weekends, they should make use of the time to register rather than waiting for the last minute.

Meanwhile, updating on the Nata/Gweta constituency records for the first three weeks of registration, she said they experienced a similar trend of high numbers in the first week and a drastic drop by almost half of the first week’s figures during the subsequent weeks. 

She stated that they had registered only about 4 600 voters at the seven polling stations making up Nata/Gweta.

On other updates, she informed the committee that for next year’s general elections they were going to use the process used in 2014 as the 2017 Electoral Amendment Bill has been put on hold. 

Ms Ntshutelang said they have introduced a voters’ contact information form to capture the voters’ information which included contact details as well as whether the person had some kind of disability. 

This, she said, they did so that they could make provisions for disabled people to vote at ease. ENDS