Registration clerks idle as IEC and UDC battle in court
The Secretary of the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) Jefferson Siamisang says chances are that they have now lost some of their voter registration clerks due to the prolonged suspension of the registration exercise.
Speaking this week to this publication, Siamisang feared that those they had engaged might not be available for work anymore, and that they will need to re-hire when the registration commences.
Voter registration for the 2024 general elections was supposed to start on the 1st of November 2023. However, it was halted at the eleventh hour when the UDC went to court requesting to be allowed to have its agents in all registration stations observing everything.
Court granted UDC their wishes and the IEC responded by suspending the voter registration. It has been one court battle after another since end of October to date. And now the court of Appeal is expected to make a ruling on the matter next week Tuesday.
“Chances are that some of those we had employed are no longer available, and this means we will be forced to re-hire but for those available, we will use their services as per agreement.
“We are aware that the outcome has inconvenienced most of them but it is not the deliberate doings of the IEC. We have been communicating and explaining to them that everything should remain paused until we know for sure when the exercise will start,' he said.
He said they will be looking into everything once all the court battles are done. 'I cannot really tell how much damage has been caused by the delays, we will only know once the matter has been finalised in court and new dates set,' he said.
The UDC is convinced that there is always cheating during election period and has vowed that going into the 2024 elections, they will be wide awake to guard against ‘the stealing of votes by the ruling Botswana Democratic Party (BDP).’
On the other hand, the IEC believes that it will be chaotic to have UDC observers during the voter registration period saying as per the norm, observers can only be allowed inside polling stations during the voting period.