UDC working on strategies to prevent ‘election rigging’
Lebogang Mosikare | Tuesday January 25, 2022 06:00
As a precautionary measure, the UDC is now working hard behind the scenes to prevent the rigging of elections in future. In 2019 Botswana held elections that were marred by allegations of irregularity. On the merits, petitioners averred amongst other things, instances of alleged corrupt and/or illegal practices.
These included assertions that several companies were used to launder money to pay Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) officials, that officials of the electoral body issued more than one voters registration cards in order to circumvent the requirement of one man one vote; that there was double registration of voters, that voters were paid money to vote more than once and that voters rolls were falsified to favour some candidates. Several petitions were registered challenging the undue return of Members of Parliament. The allegations were grave.
They called into question the integrity of the elections. Asked about measures or strategies that the UDC will employ in future to prevent election rigging, spokesperson of the UDC Moeti Mohwasa briefly said: “I am constrained to comment on the measures that we are working on to avoid a repeat of 2019.” Although Mohwasa did not reveal the strategies that the UDC will use in future to prevent electoral fraud in the 2024 general elections and beyond, if any, some legal experts are of the view that the UDC should seize the upcoming constitutional review exercise to address any deficiencies that may be present in the Electoral Act. The High court dismissed the petitions on technicalities.
The majority of the judges dismissed the petitions on the basis that the petitions were presented to the Registrar of the High Court outside the requisite 30 days set by Section 17 (b) of the Electoral Act, on the main, including that the petitions were not accompanied by a written notice of the presentation of the petition as envisaged by Section 118 of the Electoral Act. An appeal to the Court of Appeal (CoA) in the case of Duma Gideon Boko and Others v Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) and Others was not successful.
The CoA, in a judgement penned by Justice President Ian Kirby held it had no jurisdiction to entertain the appeal. In the election petitions, the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP), the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) and others were cited as respondents in the matters. Curiously, some UDC activists have pointed an accusatory finger at the Directorate of Intelligence and Security (DIS) saying the agency was the mastermind behind the electoral fraud in order to give the BDP undue favour.
The DIS has, however, dismissed those claims saying that its Act does not allow it to meddle in partisan politics. In fact, some legal scholars say the main law in the land, the Constitution, is the best way to address a host of problems that are happening in any country including the issues of electoral rigging. In some of the minority judgements that were in favour of the UDC, the judges said that there were some lacuna in the Electoral Act that needed to be filled up in order to properly address electoral petitions in future.