Delayed party primaries cast shadow over voter registration
Mompati Tlhankane | Monday January 15, 2024 06:00
Voters in various constituencies across the country have reportedly expressed reluctance to register for the general election later this year because political parties have not availed their election candidates to them.
While the Botswana Congress Party is almost done with holding primary elections, the same cannot be said about Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) and the opposition coalition Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC) both of which are yet to kick-start the process of allowing their members to choose their general election candidates.
The closest that the UDC has come to doing so far was concluding constituency allocations among its contracting partners, while the ruling BDP is yet to roll out its plans.
There is fear in some quarters that the inordinate delay could negatively affect voter registration with potential for a historic low voter turnout.
Asked to comment on the state of affairs, BDP Secretary General, Kavis Kario, played down the development saying while traditionally political parties held primary elections prior to the start of voter registration, there should be no reason for voters to not register with the Independent Electoral Commision (IEC) ahead of primary elections. "While traditionally politicians drive voter registration, voters have a civic duty to register, and delays in holding primary elections should not lead to voter apathy," said Kario.
“Civic groups and society in general should feel duty bound to encourage people to register and nobody should feel a pinch. We should discourage the notion that people should necessarily know candidates before registering to vote...Political activism should not be linked to election registration,” said Kario.
This, according to Kario, is because the IEC programs and those of political parties are autonomous of each other and should not be equated, adding that the BDP would have wished to have long concluded its primary elections in order to allow party candidates sufficient time to make all the necessary election preparations. He attributed BDP delays to hold primary elections to the Covid-19 outbreak
“We all want primaries to come early, but to say that the delay will affect registration is not supported by facts and science," said Kario.
Speaking at a media briefing this week, BCP President, Dumelang Saleshando said failure to hold primary elections fairly and in time is an irresponsible act and called on voters to punish any such party(ies). This is because the manner in which parties conduct themselves in the build up to the general election says a lot about their character.
“The reason why we held our primary elections last year is because the BCP recognises that primaries are a critical undertaking in the exercise of democracy. We held our primary elections in two stages and together with our partners, Botswana Labour Party (BLP), we already have 45 parliamentary candidates. We will soon decide when to hold the third and final round of BCP primaries. We hope that by doing this we are showing the voter our seriousness as a party so that when we ask them to choose from this menu of political parties, the voters will be certain that among the parties at least there is one which takes them seriously,” added Saleshando.
He further said he had heard reports from constituencies that people won’t register because they do not know their candidates, saying this is an indication that citizens expect parties to take elections seriously.