10 Mar 2019

The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) has announced a second supplementary voter registration.

A news release from IEC states that the second supplementary registration would be conducted from April 15 to April 28 in all the 57 constituencies.

“The supplementary will be conducted at all the 2 260 local polling stations and 36 external ones. All the polling stations will open every day including weekends from 0800hrs and 1800hrs during weekdays and 0900hrs to 1600hrs during weekends and public holidays,” states the release.

The IEC advises the public to register in a polling district where they have principal residence, with valid National Identity Card (Omang) and should have attained the age of 18 years or above.

Meanwhile, supplementary registration that commenced on December 17 that would be ending on March 31 is still continuing.

As at 15 weeks, a total of 25 963 people had registered to vote, according to IEC while the registration exercise which started on September 3 to November 11, 2018 registered a total of 750 841 voters during the 10-week registration exercise.

IEC communications officer, Mr Osupile Maroba said in an interview that IEC targeted at least 1.3million voters out of the eligible 1.5 voters for the upcoming general elections.

He said the ongoing supplementary registration exercise was slow, but noted that there was significant progress in some areas.

“I am aware that we might see an upward trend of voters coming to register towards the end of the exercise,” he said.

In another interview, principal elections officer based in Gaborone, Ms Masego Ndlovu said the ongoing registration was slow.

She noted that as per IEC registration law, voters were only allowed to register at the principal registration compound where there was an elections officer.

“This means for all the five constituencies in Gaborone, voters register in one office based at Village in Gaborone,” she said.

She said although registration was smooth sailing, they only registered significant numbers when she went out for community outreach, except in a few cases where the voters were ferried by party-political candidates.

Ms Ndlovu said during the supplementary exercise, when interacting with voters, they had gathered that members of the public were confused as to where they should register because of confusion of boundaries of their principal residences. ENDS