Africa-Press – Botswana. The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) has taken a decision to postpone the general voter registration exercise due to an interim court order regarding the registration process.
Confirming the decision in an interview on Wednesday, IEC Secretary, Mr Jefferson Siamisang said the registration had now been set for November 13 to December 8.
The Francistown High Court had issued an order interdicting and restraining anyone from preventing the applicant, Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC) or its agents, from observing and monitoring the national registration process that had been scheduled to start on November 1.
The temporary order, returnable on November 7, allowed the applicant to observe and monitor the elections registration exercise including having its agents recording the names and national identity cards numbers of the people registering to vote.
The order also allowed the UDC or its agents to record the serial numbers of the registration booklets for each and every registration day at the opening and closing thereof.
Mr Siamisang explained that the commissioners took the decision to allow for issues raised in the court order to be ventilated and finalised by the court, as they affected registration.
He further said the IEC could not divulge more on the issues raised by the court, as the matter was before the court.
Regarding the safe keeping of registration books which were already dispersed around the country, he said the process was under way to recall them.
“As we speak some of the books have been collected for safe custody,” adding that most of that were behind were those in far and hard to reach places.
The postponement is the second after the initial registration was moved from October 4-31 to the period from November 1- 30 by the commission to address issues of logistics.
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