UDC demands IEC transparency
Goitsemodimo Kaelo | Monday October 9, 2023 06:00
Twelve months before the 2024 General Election, the UDC and the IEC could be headed for another showdown after the opposition coalition raised a number of issues regarding the latter’s conduct of elections.
Recently, the UDC national executive committee endorsed a group called Madibela Tlhopho, which they said its primary role is to defend the vote democracy. In the letter by UDC president, Duma Boko, he also outlines several demands which he says they would do everything in their power, including approaching the courts to ensure that the demands are met.
Boko said his actions invoke the fundamental precepts of fairness, credibility, impartiality, propriety and transparency, articulated in Section 65A (12) (c) of the Constitution of Botswana and further outlined under Section 3(b) of the Electoral Act (CAP 02:09) of the Laws of Botswana.
“It is under colour of these provisions and precepts that I engage with the Commission and seek to hold it to the principles and values enshrined, while also seeking to provide the robust external scrutiny and stringent monitoring that has hitherto been either weak or lacking in our entire electoral system. It is the responsibility of every voter, citizen and person of goodwill to provide this continuing scrutiny and monitoring,” he said. Boko also said the IEC has, in the past, including the most recent past, been characterised by open bias in favour of the ruling Botswana Democratic Party (BDP). Therefore, he stated that it is these past and present flaws and failures of the IEC that must now lead to improved methods and practices. Amongst the issues and demands, the UDC make regards the data capture, storage, retrieval and management. The UDC states that the integrity and reliability of the systems that generate certain records such as the voters’ rolls is of vital importance.
Boko said they are strongly against the practice of allowing registration officers being allowed to go home with registration booklets overnight and return to the registration stations the next day. Boko said allowing registration officers to keep the registration booklets and taking them to their homes has resulted in situations where many individuals were registered overnight, outside the normal registration hours, and without presenting themselves physically to such registration officers, or even availing the requisite documentation. As such, he said they demand to be furnished with information on what system and software, the IEC is using for its data storage and management, when the system was installed and who is its supplier and whether there is a service level agreement between the IEC and the supplier or manufacturer of such system and software and, if so, how long has the agreement been in place? Furthermore, the UDC wants to know where the system is currently housed and where was it housed in the 2019 General Election, who captures and inputs the data from the registration booklets into the system and at what times is this done and the names of all personnel, either with the IEC or outside, who have rights to access the IEC data management system and their scope of their rights.
“In critical part, we demand that the IEC undertake to ensure the proper handling of the registration booklets and ensure that they are not left to the registration officers to take home as they have done in the past,” read the letter.
On the issue of voter registration monitoring and oversight, Boko says as the registration commences in November, they demand that their election registration clerks be allowed to attend and observe the registration process to ensure that the provisions of the Electoral Act are fully complied with and prevent the large-scale improprieties of the last elections. “We demand that our Registration Clerks verify what the last number is on the registration booklet at the close of each registration day and ensure that when the process commences the next day there are no irregularities of overnight insertions, away from the normal hours,” he stated. Additionally, he said the UDC is aware that there were intelligence agents who were deployed at various polling stations and running the elections during the 2019. He also said they are also aware of an IT specialist who was engaged by the IEC in 2019 and was chiefly responsible for the manipulation of the IEC data management system.
“We therefore would like to know who is the immediate past IT Officer who worked for the IEC and who was transferred when summoned to appear before the Commission and who has replaced the said officer since he was transferred,” the letter states. Boko said in addition to engaging the IEC on these issues, they would also engage election monitoring bodies in the region and internationally, foreign embassies and other oversight institutions to ensure as extensive and transparent discussions as possible. He said it is only by taking this route that the IEC might be roused to take its work more seriously than before.
When contacted for comment on the demand letter, IEC spokesperson Osupile Maroba said he is no aware of the letter, and therefore, was hamstrung to comment on its contents. “I am not aware of such a letter from the UDC. Maybe it has not reached my office yet but I have not been informed about it,” Maroba said.