20 Aug 2019

The Secretary of the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) Ms Keireng Zuze has emphasised the importance of sensitising prospective candidates on electoral processes as a way of ensuring consistency in the application of legal provisions.

Speaking at the workshop held in Gaborone recently, Ms Zuze said the electoral cycle was at its tail end as it had started in April 2015 and ends in March 2020, saying the climax of the cycle was the conduct of the general election anticipated in October this year.

It is important to always facilitate these kinds of workshops before every general election to prepare key stakeholders so as to avoid mistakes due to ignorance of the electoral processes and legal frame work governing elections, she said.

She said Parliament was adjourned on August 9, 2019 and once it was dissolved 57 parliamentary vacancies would be created which should be filled within a period of 60 days, followed by issuance of writ of election and election instrument for each of the 490 polling districts.

“Another key process after dissolution of Parliament is the presidential nominations for which the returning officer is the chief justice which will be held on the first Saturday following 20 days of the expiry date from the date of parliamentary dissolution,” she said.

Ms Zuze indicated that the nominations of candidates for both national assembly and local government would take place followed by polling and counting of results.

All the processes require due diligence and adherence to the electoral laws by all involved and collective approach,  she said, adding that adequate preparations were critical to ensure delivery of a credible electoral process as election is a long process.

For his part IEC Communications officer Mr Osupile Maroba said there were few challenges faced during registration such as voter apathy, vastness of the country, inadequate resources which included human, financial and transport, language barrier, illegal registration and overwhelming number of independent candidates.

“From the mentioned challenges more focus is on  the voter apathy challenge as it is really a concern that people this year did not register in large numbers compared to the 2014 voting population,” he said.

He also said looking at the statistics that the commission had, there were concerns whether people would show up for voting. ENDS