No way of supervising UDC’s conduct – IEC
Mompati Tlhankane | Tuesday November 14, 2023 06:00
UDC agents, popularly known as Madibela Tlhopho, were today supposed to begin observing the registration but the IEC once again suspended the registration pending the final determination of the main application which will be heard on Wednesday.
A temporary court order allowed Madibela Tlhopho to record the names and national identity card numbers of the people registering to vote and record the serial numbers of the registration booklets for each and every registration day at the opening and closing thereof.
The IEC has now made history by suspending the voter registration period twice as they stick to their belief that political parties do not have a right to observe the voter registration exercise. In their latest decision to suspend registration Jeff Siamisang, the IEC secretary, outlined that the suspension is based on the Commission's belief and conviction that in law, political parties do not have a right to deploy their agents at polling stations during the registration exercise to observe and monitor the process, as well as recording voters’ particulars and the serial numbers of registration books used.
The IEC has twice cut short UDC’s victories following two separate court orders which granted the latter the chance to observe and monitor the registration exercise. Pending the final determination of an application determining the extent of UDC’s constitutional right to observe and monitor registration, the IEC doesn’t want the UDC near the registration process. UDC won round one on October 31 when Francistown High Court’s Justice Gaolapelwe Ketlogetswe issued a rule nisi which allowed the UDC to observe and monitor the process.
In a last-minute rush, the IEC postponed the registration from November 13 to December 8. The process was initially supposed to run from November 1 to 30. On Friday, the Francistown High Court reaffirmed the October 31 rule nisi which allowed the UDC to observe and monitor the process which officially kick-starts the election cycle.
A few hours later the IEC announced that it had suspended the registration period until further notice as it waits “for a full ventilation of the issues in Court when the substantive matter is heard on Wednesday (November 15), 2023, at the Francistown High Court”. Siamisang, in his answering affidavit, argued that the registration clerks proposed to be deployed by the UDC are firstly, not provided for in the Electoral Act and, secondly, that he will have no way of supervising Madibela Tlhopho.
“The short answer to that difficulty, if it is a difficulty at all, is that the UDC is not asking the Secretary to supervise their registration clerks, nor to appoint them. It is also clear to me, prima facie, that all that the UDC asks for, or demands, is that its registration clerks be allowed to participate in the registration process for purposes of capturing data which it may wish to use to raise objections to the certification of the voters’ roll. The IEC is refusing, relying as it has done, on the argument that such a course of action is not provided for in the law," Ketlogetswe pointed out in court.
"The UDC’s counter-argument is that when the Constitution charges the IEC with the responsibility to conduct the electoral processes 'fairly', the Constitution prescribes a credible and transparent process capable of being adjudged to be so objectively.” Ketlogetswe said the IEC has a mistaken view thinking that the registration of voters is a matter exclusively between itself and the voter. As the IEC postpones and suspends the registration, their contention is that what the UDC is demanding to do was something not provided for in the law.
Siamisang’s argument in court is that since the Act does not envisage the participation of members of the public or political parties during the registration process as described by the UDC, it is unclear how a dispute between the UDC’s 'registration clerks' and the IEC’s registration officers as to the accuracy of the details recorded in the registration books would be resolved in terms of the Act.
He said this would undermine the orderly conduct of the registration process. The IEC has also pointed out, that the lawgiver has deliberately decided to exclude the participation of political parties at the registration stage by not making any provision for registration observation and monitoring by such political parties or any member of the public for that matter. The IEC argued that if the lawgiver intended to provide for registration observation and monitoring, that would have been expressly provided for.