Botswana AU Observers Okay Vote Preparations

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Gaborone — The African Union (AU) Observer Mission in Botswana has
given preparations for the country's elections on Friday a clean bill
of health.

At the a press conference in Gaborone on Tuesday, the head of the
mission Dr Brigalia Bam of South Africa said that so far, they are
satisfied with what the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) has
done to prepare for the polls, the tenth since the country gained
independence from Britain in 1966.

"The AU observer mission is convinced that there exist conducive and
favourable conditions for the elections generally, and that sufficient
preparatory work has been done to enable the people of Botswana to go
to the polls and make their political choices based on free will," she
said.

Ms Bam who chairs the South African electoral commission said the AU
mission is satisfied with the explanation given by IEC to shed light
on why students sitting exams and over 25,000 civil servants will not
vote on Friday. She added that operational hiccups should not be used
to determine whether elections are free and fair.

She suggested that Botswana should adopt the counting of votes at
polling centres because ferrying ballot boxes to the constituency
headquarters for counting is outdated.

She said the Botswana IEC needs to be fully in control of the election
process by for example setting the polling date. Currently, the
Botswana president sets the election date, much to the chagrin of
opposition parties who have demanded that the date be fixed by law.

But Ms Bam said that fixing the election date might not be wise. She
said it might be difficult to postpone elections due to factors like
poor preparations if the date has been fixed.

She stated that it is not fair for governments to be in charge of
elections because the ruling party is always a player in the process.
Besides the AU, a SADC team has also arrived in Botswana to monitor
the elections.