12 Mar 2026

The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) has successfully designed and installed a new Elections Management System replacing the old one, which has since become obsolete.

Minister for State President, Defence and Security, Mr Moeti Mohwasa revealed this in his presentation of the 2026/27 budget request for the IEC on Wednesday.  Minister Mohwasa told Parliament that the new system would be used by the commission to manage huge electoral data.

“The new system has more capacity, as well as improved security and workflow features. The IEC has also completed migration of data from the old system to the new system,” he said. 

He added that as part of advance preparations for the general elections for 2029 and at the same time addressing some of the issues raised by stakeholders during the evaluation of the 2024 general elections, the IEC had just opened an office at Lerala, utilising the offices of the Department of Information Services. 

Other places targeted for opening of IEC offices, he said included Sefhare and Mabutsane by the end of April and June this year respectively, following completion of procurement processes relating to office space and other requirements. 

Mr Mohwasa said plans were in place to decongest Thamaga, Shoshong, Mogoditshane and Mahalapye IEC offices. 

“Now, what the IEC is doing is commendable and very much in sync with their strategy of bringing electoral services closer to communities. Our hope is that this would improve voters’ participation rate in electoral processes,” he said. 

Parliament also learnt about the need for reforms regarding the laws governing the conduct and management of elections. 

Mr Mohwasa said once the Constitution had been reviewed comprehensively, subsidiary legislations such as the Electoral Act would be reviewed as well, to create the necessary alignment and address issues of transparency in electoral processes. 

Meanwhile, Parliament approved the requested P434.4 million for IEC’s recurrent and development budget estimates for 2026/27 financial year, with a P102.5 million for recurrent budget and P336.8 million for development budget. 

A total of P1,092,090 would be used to cover gratuities for contract officers, whose contracts expired through effluxion of time during the 2026/2027 financial year while the sum of P2.1 million would cater for local travel and subsistence costs, petrol, oil and lubricants. 

Over P11 million would fund among others, postal charges, service charges including utilities, uniform and protective clothing and printing of election materials for by-elections, if any including office and warehouse rentals .

The sum of P1.8 million would cover maintenance services for recording and visual aid equipment, computer systems and consumables and vehicle spare parts and general maintenance of the IEC’s fleet. 

Under the development budget, P336.8 million would cater for the ongoing review of electoral processes project estimated at the cost of P50 million.

The project involved installation of electronic voter registration systems and may straddle two or three financial years due to its technical complexities. 

Over P11.6 million had been proposed for the construction of new office block and staff houses at Bobonong, as well as staff houses at Shakawe.

The bulk of the budget would be allocated towards facilitation of an anticipated National Referendum on the establishment of a Constitutional Court at an estimated cost of P275 million. BOPA