25 Jan 2024

Voter registration in Mahalapye District jurisdictional area for elections has been reported to be in good progress.

In an interview with BOPA on Wednesday, the Principal Registration Officer for Tswapong South Constituency, Mrs Gaeboloke Ditebo, said since commencement of the registration process the public showed up in large numbers.

Mrs Ditebo said in the first week they recorded high numbers during the registration exercise thus she remained hopeful to reach the expected targets overtime.

Over and above, she noted that even though people have not registered in very large numbers as expected there is no mismatch of registration and population statistics.

She said the polling stations were open during the week and on weekends, adding that they still had no challenges concerning their workers and material used for registration.

Registration clerks were working as expected, she said, as they provide good customer service and therefore they encourage people to go and register.

Mrs Ditebo said her office was encouraging people to register and building voter confidence through the media and public announcements throughout the district as well as other platforms.

She said they had not yet analyzed the most registering age group as the registration differs on daily basis and the numbers registered per day keep on fluctuating.

She said there was nothing holding back the community to register for elections as the national registration office has embarked on an initiative of going an extra mile in helping the public even after normal working hours to as far as closing business at 6 p.m. citing renewal of Omang/ID documents, among others as some of the services offered that make voters eligible.

Thus far they have not reached their target but they hope people will register because there still time and mostly people tend to register under pressure during the last days of registration looking at the previous registration exercises.

She therefore encouraged the public to register well on time as this would help them to exercise their right to universal suffrage or rather the right to vote.

Mr Gakenosi Motshwarakgole the Principal Registration officer for Shoshong Constituency, shared that they recorded high numbers of registration mostly during kgotla meetings and during pay days for adults at the Post Office.

Mr Motshwarakgole said  however that people who lived at settlements and cattle post tended to register in low numbers, but they were still hopeful that the remaining number would register as the registration was ongoing.

He added that the registration was going well in villages as people are showing up in good numbers as compared to those at cattle posts and far-flung areas.

When giving an overview of the progress, Mr Motshwarakgole said they expected a lot of people to have registered to vote, but they are not satisfied by the registered numbers looking at the population statistics in their district.

The current statistics illustrates that Mahalapye West constituency recorded a total of 6 627 eligible voters whereas Mahalapye East recorded 6 457 while Tswapong South 9 219 and Shoshong Constituency registered 6 514.

However, according to Statistics Botswana’s 2022 Population Census Mahalapye village has a population of 48,431.

General elections will be held in Botswana this year in October to determine the composition of the 13th Parliament as well as local councils across the country. Up for elections are 61 seats of the unicameral National Assembly as well as 490 local council seats, all elected through the first-past-the-post voting system. ENDS