Botswana: IEC Headache - Voter Transfer Requests

The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) is currently inundated by voters who want to be transferred to various constituencies across the country for several reasons, among them being voter trafficking. The Commission's Spokesperson, Osupile Maroba told The Patriot on Sunday that they started to receive influx of transfer requests after parliament went into recess last week.

"We have observed that many voters are flooding our offices across the country to try and request for transfers. We have realized that Batswana are confused, they think parliament has already been dissolved but the truth of the matter is that parliament is on recess and we are still waiting for President Mokgweetsi Masisi to officially dissolve the national assembly as per the country's constitution," Maroba pointed out. He stated that it is for the first time in the history of IEC that hordes of people want to get transfers from where they initially registered to vote at. The IEC spokesperson buttressed that the law empowers them to reject some transfer requests which are not supported by valid reasons. "We have realized that some of the voters are encouraged by third parties to request for transfers and that is totally wrong," he further held. Even though Maroba was reluctant to clearly mention the third parties involved, this publication is reliably informed that politicians who will be contesting for the forthcoming general elections are the once facilitating transfer requests in an effort to increase the numbers of electorates who might vote for them.

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