Times Of Swaziland: LOCAL GOVT ELECTIONS – MALKERNS TOWN BOARD

LOCAL GOVT ELECTIONS – MALKERNS TOWN BOARD
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Editor on 07/06/2023 10:02:00


Sir,
The uproar surrounding the seemingly undemocratic act on the part of the
returning officer, to exclude certain individuals from the voters roll ahead of
the local government elections, would appear not to be unique to the Siteki Town
Council. It would appear that the returning officer for Malkerns has also
decided to adopt the same strategy by identifying supposed ‘discrepancies’
to prevent certain individuals from being included under the Urban Government
(Elections) Regulations 1969. A voters roll that was incidentally signed and
certificated as being correct by the returning officer for Malkerns on May 12,
2023, though still full of errors.
For my peace of mind, I would respectfully invite the returning officer at the
ministry, Samkeliso Makhubu, to confirm where, in the regulations, it states
that an individual with a Class 1 residency permit issued by the Ministry of
Home Affairs, who satisfies Regulation 3 (a six-month residency period), cannot
be included on the voters roll. For formal identification purposes, I have
always used my passport as my ‘identity number’ (Regulation 7(2)(a)), which
has always been acceptable to my bank; when applying for police clearance and on
my COVID-19 vaccination identity card. Yet the returning officer has decided, in
his wisdom, to use it as a valid reason to now exclude me (and possibly others)
from the Malkerns voters roll. Fortunately, under Regulation 13, the minister of
Housing and Urban Development has the power to intervene and to correct any
errors or omissions on the part of the returning officers, for all those wrongly
excluded voters, if the local government elections are to have any real
credibility.
Mike Drew
NB: In an effort to afford them the right to reply, this letter was emailed to
the Malkerns Town Board on May 30, 2023 and the Board responded by saying the
letter would be best responded to by the returning officer. The Board emailed
the letter to the returning officer and he acknowledged receiving the letter on
May 31, 2023. But to date we have not received any response to the letter.
Ed