EU election observers praise IEC

MASERU – THE European Union Election Observer Mission has commended the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) for holding a “peaceful and well organised election” last Friday.

The mission released its preliminary findings on Tuesday, promising to release the final detailed report with recommendations within two months.

The mission said despite the persistent financial shortcomings and legal uncertainty, “the IEC was able to conduct most of its activities according to the electoral calendar”.

“The budget allocated for this election was insufficient and did not take into consideration the IEC’s financial needs in the context of a significantly increased number of contestants,” the mission said.

“In addition, the IEC received its funding late in the process, in weekly installments, which also impacted negatively on the election preparations and made the implementation of the planned essential activities such as voter education and the transportation of election materials very difficult.”

It said the IEC provided the public with information posted exclusively on its Facebook page, mostly related to voter education messages and announcements.

However, it said meetings were informal and meeting minutes were not made public.

Moreover, it said, the IEC lacks procedures and a mechanism to formally determine and declare its decisions.

“While the IEC has the legal power to make regulations and interpretation into rules of procedures on various aspects of the election process, in practice they are neither formalised nor published, reducing the clarity and transparency of the IEC’s work.”

The mission found that the performance of the election administrators at district and constituency level was professional.

The workers were committed to the work despite the difficult situation, it said.

Many people interviewed, the mission said, expressed general trust in local election administrations but also doubted the capacity of the IEC to deliver, particularly in rural areas.

It found that some constituencies struggled with the difficult environment and long distances, lack of electricity and access to the internet.

It also found that many returning officers had to work without basic office equipment and insufficient communication tools to liaise efficiently with stakeholders and IEC district offices.

The mission found that polling staff was recruited on time and the IEC demonstrated competence training staff.

However, due to financial constraints, many observed training sessions were conducted in overcrowded and inadequate locations with insufficient training materials.

Voter education, it said, was one of the areas that was most affected by the financial shortcomings, as it was reduced from three months to three weeks ahead of the elections.

Most of the interviewees, it said, considered the voter education for these elections to be insufficient especially for certain categories of voters such as youth and disabled people.

The mission found that trust in the voter register was affected by a lack of a comprehensive approach to improve its accuracy.

It said the accuracy of the voter register was questioned by many interviewees referring to possible names of dead people and reported errors in voters’ data.

To improve the quality of the voter register the IEC had initially planned to link it to the civil register.

This, the mission said, proved impossible to do prior to the elections due to the large volume of data to be processed.

In an effort to find an alternative solution to improve the accuracy of the voter register, the IEC decided to extend the period for public scrutiny and corrections from 12 August to 30 September.

“The IEC respected the legal obligation to publish the certified voter register and shared it with registered political parties no later than 30 days before the elections,” the mission observed.

The voter list contained 1 383 844 voters, which is 767 158 women and 616 868 men.

“Closer to election day, allegations of errors and inaccuracies in the voters’ list were expressed in the media. The IEC denied the allegations and threatened anyone spreading inaccurate information with civil action.”

The mission observed that there was a peaceful campaign with lack of transparency of campaign finance, no spending caps, and use of state resources.

It also raised concerns about the links between some political parties and famo music groups, “which have grown into organised gangs, and their participation in campaign events raised concerns about their influence on elected officials”.

“The EU EOM saw several instances of the use of government vehicles for campaigning, which is legal for ministers and “other officials” but contrary to international good practice.”

“The IEC is the sole oversight body for campaign and party finance. Its lack of financial and human resources coupled with the high number of registered parties made it extremely challenging to perform this function,” it said.

There is a legal requirement for political parties and independent candidates to declare to the IEC any donation exceeding M200 000 “but no declaration has been made since 2012”.

“Foreign funding for campaign purposes,” the mission said, “puts the country at risk of foreign influence, and is not in line with international good practice for democratic elections.”

Staff Reporter