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The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) set the period between September 3 and November 11, 2018 for the registration of the 2019 general elections. It is obvious that the amended Elections Act has not entered effective in spite of its enactment by Parliament at some point in December 2016.
It has remained under consideration since the President gave his consent, as is the case with every Act of Parliament before that it does become a part of our laws. If the law did not come into force, it could only apply to certain future elections after the general elections of 2019. The current electoral law will therefore continue to be the law governing our elections.
Assuming that the amended law would not apply in the 2019 general election, it is permissible to argue that the registration from September 3 to November 11, 2018 is I suppose also that the article 5 of the Election Act, which empowers the secretary of the IEC to divide each constituency into electoral districts after a delimitation exercise does not apply for the reasons that we are still under Article 3 of the Election Act, the Secretary of the IEC, subject to the direction and supervision of the Commission, issues instructions to election officers and registration officers [s]. he may find it necessary to ensure the effective enforcement of the provisions of this Act … "
In general, politicians and interested parties tend to focus on the elections themselves rather registration process, which is the key to a free and fair survey. When registering the 2014 general election, I remember reading a story in one of the local newspapers of candidates who had provided identity cards to an officer of the registry around Lobatse for the registration of voters who did not show up at the polling station
Although we paid little attention to the incident, it should have sounded the alarm to wake us up that the system was likely to be abused willy-nilly, and as usual in this Republic we tend to forget quickly and continue as if nothing had happened. Unlike polling day, where the Act provides, under section 49, that election officers obtain the right to vote, section 4 of the Act only allows registration officers to proceed to registration without independent observers. This is probably an badumption that the recording is foolproof because there is no provision allowing political parties to appoint observers upon registration, but it is a fact that the IEC does this exercise with temporary personnel vulnerable to all sorts of elements in the game. In the absence of any provision to this effect, a representative of a political party or a politician who may want to observe the registration may be declared by the registrar as an undesirable person in the polling station.
As noted above, these registration officers and where they come from are matters within the duties of the Secretary, in accordance with the instructions and supervision of the Commission. This is a serious flaw that the Election Act eliminates the right of the elector to a free and fair election.
It is common knowledge that the IEC has no own staff to do this important exercise, but relies on temporarily hired staff who have no experience other than the short introductory course. after engagement
These registration personnel usually come from the check-in area. The worst thing is the retention of voting materials badigned to each polling station. It is a fact that every registrar at a polling station retains at all times the registration material in his custody at his home until the end of the fiscal year. . What are you doing with that?
What is the temptation of unscrupulous people having an interest in deciding the outcome of an election in their favor by taking advantage of the loophole to provide identity cards of their favorite voters for registration in out of the
We should never treat the Lobatse incident as an isolated incident. In the past, we have heard many incidents of this kind in our own region and many of us have the urge to want to determine the outcome of the election in our favor. Why not when the system is so tempting?
In my opinion, that many share, I believe, a free and fair election must begin from the date of the voter registration, and not only by the vote and the outcome. We, therefore, can not be proud, as a democracy, of conducting free and fair elections when our registration is conducted in this way. It is therefore appropriate to require the IEC to provide a foolproof registration process before the start of the first and subsequent registrations for the 2019 general elections.
Finally, I think this task of gathering together hordes of innocent public officers without experience to be in charge of our electoral process should be reconsidered as a matter of priority. It does not serve the best interest of our democracy, which is mistaken by some as a paragon of virtue in Africa
* Morgan Moseki, member of BCP Francistown East, writes in his personal capacity [19659014] (function (d, s, id) {
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