27 Jun 2019

Registration of transfers by voters is open in accordance with Section 25 of the Electoral Act.

Briefing Kgatleng District councillors recently, Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) chief elections officer, Ms Patricia Mmoloke said the process would go on until the dissolution of Parliament.

She said the sensitisation of stakeholders on IEC’s level of preparedness for the upcoming general elections commenced in April and would continue until October.

“Sensitisation of prospective candidates will commence in July to appraise them on the electoral law,” she said, adding that following the dissolution of Parliament, amalgamation of rolls would follow suit.

Ms Mmoloke further informed councillors that the performance audit to establish whether elections were held according to international standards would be conducted by the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IIDEA), a process, which she said had already started and would continue until after the release of election results.

She stated that the inspection of voters’ rolls was ongoing to afford those with objections to register them with the principal registration officers.

Ms Mmoloke said so far about 1 500 objections had been registered at various magistrate courts.

Meanwhile, she noted that the voter registration showed lower voter turnaround than targeted.

She said a total of 73 per cent of the 80 per cent target of the eligible voting population had registered, translating to 930 933 voters versus the 1 273 880 set target.

Of these figures, 58 per cent were of the age group 36 plus while 41.9 per cent were of the 18-35 age bracket.

The consolidated voter registration by gender indicated that a total of 45.4 per cent were males and 54.6 per cent were females.

Ms Mmoloke said in 2014, the registered number of voters was 825 582, which was 77 per cent.

Speaking on the number of registration of independent candidates, she noted that 170 for local government and 17 for the national assembly had registered for this year’s general elections.

On IEC’s expectations regarding councillors’ role in the country preparing for general elections, Ms Mmoloke said they were appealing to them to help in voter sensitisation and encouraged voters to also partake in inspection of rolls.

“We need you to also educate people on the importance of voting, elections and inform them on dates for nomination and polling,” she said.

She said some of IEC’s achievements included increase in youth participation by 21 per cent, 29 per cent, and 40 per cent in 2004, 2009 and 2014 respectively.

She said they also had a reduction in the number of election petitions, which was 7 in 2009 and 1 in 2014 and she credited this to the establishment of conflict resolution structures.

Ms Mmoloke said some of the challenges IEC had faced included voter apathy, vastness of the country, inadequate resources being human capital, financial and transport, language barriers, overwhelming number of independent candidates and the use/abuse of social media to proliferate fake news.

Councillors had the chance to comment on IEC’s presentation and most of them spoke on the issue of petitions being lodged citing voter trafficking and most held the sentiment that the Constitution allowed people to register to vote wherever they felt like registering and they should be allowed to do so. ENDS