The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC)’s supplementary registration, which ran from February 26th to March 15th, fell short of the target by about 40%
After all the reconciliation, it seems that fewer voters registered than intended, with just slightly over 70,000 registering during the just concluded supplementary registration period. “At the closure of the exercise, the Commission had registered 74, 550 Batswana across all the 61 Constituencies,” states the election body which is in charge of monitoring elections for elected members of Botswana’s Local Authorities and National Assembly.
In addition, they add that: “The combined total number of registered Batswana from the General Voters’ Registration and the first Supplementary Voters’ Registration exercises is 810, 974 which translates into 62% of the targeted voters.”
The Statistics update for the first supplementary voters’ registration exercise comes after the first voter registration which was held from January 5th to February 3rd was 536 576 short of the 1.3 million target.
At the time, IEC indicated that during the registration period: “The Commission registered about seven hundred and thirty six thousand, four hundred and twenty four (736,424) voters. The number includes the one thousand, six hundred and forty-three (1, 643) registered in the diaspora. This is approximately 54% of our target of approximately 1.3 million.”
In 2014, only 53% of the eligible voter population cast ballots; however this figure dropped to 49% in the 2019 elections. Previously, a report prepared by the University of Botswana Democracy Research Project (DRP) on behalf of the IEC cited a number of reasons why people in Botswana abstain from voting.
According to the report, some of the factors contributing to voter apathy in Botswana include: “Lack of knowledge about political parties…… Lack of interest in partisan politics…… Lack of credible and ethical political candidates…… A weak relationship between the political representatives and electorates……and Lack of recall mechanism for underperforming politicians”.
IEC spokesperson Osupile Maroba noted that in an effort to reach a broader audience, all polling stations, including those in the diaspora, will host what is likely the final supplementary registration. Among other things, he indicated that the next supplementary registration will run from May 20th through to May 31st.
