Africa-Press – Lesotho. A political campaign company with links to the Revolution for Prosperity (RFP) has alleged that the voters’ roll for the upcoming election is replete with serious mistakes.
Shikamo Political Advisory and Campaign Services’s findings come barely a week before an election that some consider the most closely contested polls in years.
The earth-shattering findings are based on a sample of 20 percent of the voters’ roll.
Shikamo denies having a hand in the analysis and any dealings with the RFP.
thepost however understands that the company has been combing through the voters’ roll for the past four weeks at the RFP’s instigation.
It is also behind the RFP’s previous queries to the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) about the roll.
The report, which the consultancy is said to have handed to the IEC this week, reveals that about five percent of the sampled 20 percent of the voters’ roll has serious mistakes that could compromise the election’s integrity and credibility.
The major anomalies relate to the mistakes in the voters’ dates of birth, registration numbers and the duplication of details.
Based on the sample used, Shikamo’s findings imply that the details of 313 000 of the 1 253 540 registered voters have been duplicated, miss dates of birth or have wrong registration numbers.
This could mean that 313 000 people might be denied the right to vote if their details are not corrected before the election.
It could also lead to double voting.
The 313 000 is just over half of the 587 000 people who voted in the 2017 election. It is 77 000 votes more than the 235 000 votes that propelled the All Basotho Convention (ABC) to victory in the previous election and double the votes won by the second-placed Democratic Congress (DC).
Districts with the highest number of voters whose dates of birth are missing are Leribe, Quthing and Qacha’s Nek.
Cases of duplicated voters’ details are most prevalent in Quthing and Qacha’s Nek. Leribe and Qacha’s Nek have the highest number of voters whose registration numbers are wrong.
In some cases, voters’ details are either incomplete, wrong or not captured. In some, the whole list of voters from one polling station appears in the list of another polling station.
The IEC’s spokesperson, Tuoe Hantsi, this week dismissed Shikamo’s findings.
“Those allegations are not correct as the voters’ roll is classified with districts, constituencies and then villages and can be downloaded,” Hantsi said.
“The voters’ roll is not duplicated but has some duplicates meaning voters are appearing more than once. We print the voters’ roll to be displayed at centres so that the electorates can make queries to the voters’ roll as we have people sharing names in the country. That works as a form of verification mechanism.”
“The final roll will be much cleaner with the help of the electorate and stakeholders.”
IEC sources that spoke to thepost this week said Shikamo’s findings are close to what they are noticing in the roll.
A source described this election’s roll as the “worst we have seen in years”.
“It’s just chaotic. It’s a mess,” said the source.
“We are battling to clean that mess. Someone just did not do their job because this chaos was foreseen six weeks ago when the first voters’ roll was printed.”
“As we speak now there is a mad race to capture some of the transfers and new registrations. I doubt this will be completed before the election”.
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