|
IEC principal elections officer responsible for the three Francistown constituencies of Francistown East, South and West, Clement Siviya, told Mmegi yesterday that more voters are destined to register in the 97 polling stations. His confidence is strengthened by the 1,168 eligible voters who have registered in three days since the start of the exercise last Saturday.
Although the nine-day exercise started slowly with only 279 people registering in the three constituencies last Saturday, Siviya hopes that more people would have registered when the exercise ends on March 21. “The rate at which people are registering promises that more Batswana will take part in the exercise,” he said. He was happy that stakeholders are playing a positive role in wooing Batswana to register. He said his office has been consulting with politicians, civil servants, churches and others to talk to their people to register.
He said the importance of registering and voting need not be over emphasised as this was the only available democratic way of choosing political representatives at both council and parliamentary level. In the first three days of the exercise, the Francistown South constituency was leading with 456 voters, followed by Francistown West with 429 and Francistown East with 283. “You are the only ones who can make things happen for yourselves,” Siviya said.
The three constituencies have been struggling to reach the target of 50, 000 set by the IEC. Given the pace at which the registration is progressing, it seems the IEC target will not be achievable. Even Siviya is on record having stated that the target was “near impossible as it is not a true reflection of the expected number of voters”.
|
