23 Feb 2023

An amendment to the Electoral Act is imminent as government endeavours to improve credibility of elections in Botswana.

Answering a question in Parliament on Wednesday, Assistant Minister for State President, Mr Dumezweni Mthimkhulu said an Electoral (Amendment) Bill of 2023 would be brought before the National Assembly during the current sitting seeking to amend the Electoral Act to bar the use of smart phones and other gadgets at polling stations.

Mr Mthimkhulu also said the amendment would also seek to make it mandatory for election officials to be impartial and neutral in the exercise of their functions and allow the electoral processes have checks and balances embedded in them to ensure the credibility of elections.

“It is true that the names of public officers who vote in advance remain in the voters roll and this is because the roll cannot be amended at that stage in accordance with Section 27 (d) of the Electoral Act,” he said.

Further, he said other measures put in place to avoid officers from voting the second time included appending initials of the presiding officer and date at the back of their voter’s registration cards as well as striking off the names of such officers from the roll prior to the start of the poll on the general polling day.

Member of Parliament for Francistown South, Mr Wynter Mmolotsi, had wanted to know of the plans put in place to ensure that the credibility of elections was improved. He also opined that public officers who voted prior to the general elections voted twice because their names remained on the voters rolls. Ends