Africa-Press – Botswana. The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) has installed a new Election Management System (EMS), with more data capacity and security features to improve its electoral processes.
This was revealed by the IEC secretary, Mr Jefferson Siamisang, when appearing before the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament on Friday.
Mr Siamisang explained that the EMS was used to manage IEC’s sensitive election data, expressing concern that the old system was installed in the mid-90s and did not have enough capacity and security features.
To address this challenge, he said the IEC had installed a new system, which had more capacity and additional security features.
He said the new system could also disaggregate functions and responsibilities better.
“In other words, it is very clear on who does what, in the system, and it can actually detect who went into the system to do,” he said.
Currently, Mr Siamisang said, the commission was done with the installation of a new EMS and was now doing quality assurance testing and data migration from the old system into the new system.
Once all is complete, he said, the system would also help avert recurrence of the same challenges that were experienced, leading to the advance poll, as the commission had also included a component called the Advance Poll Management Module in the new system.
“What is going to happen is that the system is going to be in such a way that we just take a list of our poll staff, super dispose this list on the system, and automatically the system will generate information indicating where each one of those poll staff members will vote,” he explained.
By doing so, he said, automatically the IEC would know how many people would be voting at each constituency, to remedy all previous advance poll challenges encountered as voting advanced.
In terms of achievements, the IEC secretary said one of the commission’s two main achievements, during the 2021/2022 financial year, was managing to successfully hold a run of 12 council bye-elections.
These bye-elections, he said, had accumulated during the preceding financial year, due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Another achievement, during the same period under review, Mr Siamisang said was the fact that IEC managed to sensitise its stakeholders, especially politicians and the poll staff that were engaged in the conduct and management of the bye-elections.
“We did that despite the fact that there were COVID-19 protocols that were supposed to be observed that is why we are viewing this as an achievement,” he said. As an entity charged with managing the country’s elections, he said the commission also experienced a challenge relating to voter apathy.
Unfortunately, he said, the voter turnout for the 12 local government bye-elections was about 45 per cent.
“This was not a good thing, but this has always been a trend with bye-elections, maybe because bye-elections do not necessarily influence the formation of a government. So, not many people have the motivation to go and vote during bye-elections,” he added.
Regarding the challenges experienced, the IEC secretary said the commission encountered a problem with delayed closure of the final accounts for Tutume IEC offices, due to the main contractor’s delay in attending to some of the efficiencies, in the building, that were previously identified during inspection.
Unfortunately, he said, a voter apathy study that the IEC conducted using the University of Botswana’s Democracy Research Project, which was supposed to be concluded the same financial year, was also delayed posing yet another challenge.
Giving a brief summary of the 2024 general elections, Mr Siamisang said the IEC managed to register 1 130 275 voters who were to cast their votes on the day of the national poll, which included Batswana who were resident in the diaspora.
This number, he said, was about 80 per cent of the IEC’s set target, of 1.3 million voters, being 80 per cent of the country’s voting population, which was around 1.7 million people.
In the final analysis, at elections, he said, 845 318 registered voters managed to cast their vote in the 2024 general elections, which was about 81.4 per cent of 1 130 275 million voters who were validly registered to vote.
According to both the local and international election observers, he said, the country’s 2024 general elections were described as free, fair, credible, transparent and conducted in accordance with the laws of the country.
Despite this statement, the IEC secretary said the commission encountered challenges with respect to the management and conduct of the elections.
As a democratic nation, he said, everyone was permitted by the law, if aggrieved by any electoral processes, to lodge a complaint for the case to be heard.
During the advance poll, he said the IEC also experienced challenges relating to shortage of ballot papers, adding that there was also an instance where one of the candidates snatched the election materials at Kumakwane/Thamaga constituency and a re-run of elections was held in the same constituency.
Additionally, he said, the registration books for Marobela Main Kgotla Polling Station, in Nkange, were stolen, which also affected the registration for 48 voters. However, of this 48, he said 42 were identified and re-registered.
Unfortunately, he said the other six were never identified or located, as they never presented themselves at their polling stations, to vote on the day of the poll.
“We also had administrative glitches, here and there. But, I can state without any slightest hesitation that as an election management body, we subscribe to the principle of continuous learning and improvement,” he said.
Going forward, Mr Siamisang assured the PAC that the administrative glitches and other challenges, within the IEC’s control, would never recur in the country’s future general elections, “because we’ve learnt from them and we’ll use those leanings to improve our election processes”.
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