27 Aug 2014

The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) secretary, Mr Gabriel Seeletso has assured Batswana of credible general elections, come October 24.

Briefing the media in Gaborone on August 26, he said IEC had identified the company hired for printing ballot papers and he allayed anxiety of room for possible vote rigging.

He said all tendering procedures had been followed through the Public Procurement Asset Disposal Board (PPADB) and that the said company was not gazetted in the government Gazette for security reasons.

He further said since the inception of IEC in 1998, election observers from other countries had been allowed in the country and that even this year, they would be present.

Mr Seeletso further said election preparedness was on course and that the printing paper had been ordered and was awaiting writ of elections so that the IEC could produce area-specific ballot papers.

“The party symbols on ballot papers will be done according to polling districts,” he said. He stated that transfers of registration were ongoing until dissolution of parliament. He explained that following the dissolution of parliament, only duplication of lost registration cards could be produced until the eve of elections.

On other issues, Mr Seeletso said the IEC had made some improvements such as introduction of tally sheet during the counting of ballots to speed up the results process as well as the help desk for verifying registration in the event that some names did not exist in the voters roll.

The IEC also introduced the bastard size ballot paper to minimise chances of spoiled papers as it had ample space for the voter to tick appropriately in the box provided. Mr Seeletso further appealed to the parties to identify and deploy able bodied election agents . A total of 1 163 Batswana residing outside the country had registered in 38 polling stations.

Youth were were also the highest registered with a total of 389 870. A total number of voters is 824 073 against the projected 1.4 million people eligible to vote.

He also said there 34 independent parliamentary prospective while those for councilors stood at 260. Ends