By-elections costs worry BCP but IEC unperturbed
Mompati Tlhankane | Monday May 15, 2023 06:00
The BCP, a disgruntled member of the Umbrella for Democratic Party (UDC) is still stuck in the opposition coalition because their exit will trigger nationwide by-elections.
In 2020 Parliament passed a floor crossing law amending the Constitution of Botswana to safeguard voters’ interests and democracy. The law now causes a vacancy in the event a Member of Parliament (MP), elected as a candidate for a political party, resigns from a political party.
The BCP, which says it will not contest the upcoming general election under the UDC, recently told the media that it has not quit the ‘people’s project’ because it is not an irresponsible party which will unnecessarily cause by-elections in seven constituencies and 78 council wards. With the by-elections likely to be more costly if BCP were to exit the UDC, the IEC says no party should ever be worried about costs because the Commission is ever ready to take up its responsibility.
“One thing to note is that elections are the responsibility and business of the IEC and therefore, the number of vacancies and cost of filling them are not determining factors for whether or not to fill a vacancy,” IEC spokesperson Osupile Maroba told Mmegi in an interview yesterday. Maroba disclosed that they have so far approximately used well over P4 million to fill the existed vacancies in 2021 and the four which occurred were filled in 2023. Maroba said to date the IEC has conducted 17 by-elections across the country post the 2019 General Election.
It is given that conducting elections is the primary mandate of the IEC, therefore, every financial year the IEC provides budget allocation for by-elections. Since 2021, the IEC has already conducted polling district by-elections with varying expenditure influenced by the size of the polling district, number of polling stations, number of voters registered in the polling district, number of hours an election takes from commencement of voting to counting and release of results. Therefore, on an estimated average range, a polling district by-election could cost between P100,000-P250,000. Comparatively, he added that the cost of filling a constituency vacancy is higher than filling that of a polling district.
He further revealed that the cost for each constituency varies according to its size in relation to the number of polling districts and several polling stations in each of the polling districts. “The biggest constituency has 13 polling districts and more than 40 polling stations, and the smallest has one polling district and five polling stations,” he highlighted. Asked to give an estimation of costs if BCP were to exit the coalition, Maroba emphasised that it is impractical to give an objective estimation of how much it would cost to fill up several constituency vacancies. The BCP spokesperson Dr Mpho Pheko recently told the media that they have a social contract with the voters.
“Voters queued in the 2019 General Election to vote for representatives and I believe everyone all saw the IEC report which shows that the Serowe-West by-election will cost Batswana taxpayers. We are duty bound as a party to help the nation minimise costs related to unnecessary by-elections. We are going to finish our contract with the UDC which elapses next year and we intend to finish that contract without any disruptions,” she said. Pheko said both the UDC and the BCP have a responsibility to avoid unnecessary by-elections. “We don’t have the funds to handle unnecessary by-elections. The UDC has a responsibility as well and they have the option to expel us from the coalition but after that floor crossing Bill was passed they know that to expel us they will have to do it responsibly and avoid triggering avoidable by-elections. In this issue we have Batswana’s interest at heart”, she said.