Africa-Press – Eswatini. An innocent sharing of your favourite nominee on your social media status or page could land you behind bars.
According to the Elections and Boundaries Commission (EBC) it is a criminal offence to share photos of information about nominees, especially if this is viewed as one canvassing for votes. Under the Elections Act 6 of 2013, campaigning is only permitted after the elections. This means that after the primary elections have been completed, the nominees are allowed to canvass of votes. However, even the canvassing of votes have specific rules guided by the Act. It is not uncommon to spot social media posts on Facebook as well as on WhatsApp, whereby people post the candidates they nominated.
Crossed
In some of the groups, some of the facebookers posted the crossed ballots to show whom they would vote for. This is illegal according to EBC.
Mbonisi Bhembe, who is the Spokesperson for EBC, said this was an offence because it was not yet time for campaigning. He said campaigning is only permitted after the primary elections. He said for now no one was allowed to canvass for votes.
He was asked if any people had been arrested this year for such an offence, but he said he was not aware of any for now. However, he said as long as EBC could prove that one had been using social media to canvass for votes, they could collect that information and get one to be prosecuted.
Bhembe warned that those who were campaigning using this system should be careful because this was illegal and they could end up getting arrested or even find themselves losing an opportunity of losing out on elections.
Criminal
He said this was one of the offences listed under the list of offences in the Elections Act and that it was a criminal offence. The fines can range in thousands of Emalangeni. Depending on the gravity of the offences, the fines can go up to E5 000, imprisonment or both. Some of the candidates who were interviewed about this expressed shock and wondered how EBC would be able to prove this. They said this was happening and that if the elections body was serious about arresting the offenders, they would have done so a long time ago. “Even right now, if you check Facebook, it is has many posts of people who are campaigning and yet nothing is being done about it,” said *Jomo who was nominated at one of the constituencies.
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