NO VOTERS CARDS IN THIS YEAR’S ELECTIONS - EBC

MBABANE – The Elections and Boundaries Commission (EBC) will not issue voters cards for this year’s elections.

This was revealed by EBC educator Vusumuzi Mdluli during the Mahamba Gorge Hiking on Sunday when he was given an opportunity to address participants. Mdluli encouraged the hikers to participate in all the elections stages from registration up to the secondary elections. He noted that in the previous elections, young people would register in their numbers but then did not show up during the voting stages. He therefore encouraged young people to fully participate in the elections till the end.

required

Mdluli said instead of the voter’s card, voters would be required to provide their national identity cards (ID) throughout all the stages of the elections. EBC Communications Officer Mbonisi Bhembe confirmed the said changes. He said issuing the voters cards came at a cost and that cost was for the taxpayer to carry. Bhembe said therefore as EBC, it was their duty to ensure that all costs of the elections were not exorbitant. He noted that the voters’ card was made strong such that even today there were people who still had them and such showed that indeed the voters cards were costly. Bhembe also stated that there were other changes proposed for the upcoming elections. He said such included the amendments in the legislation governing the elections. He said such amendments were still being deliberated in Parliament and was currently consulting stakeholders on those amendments. He highlighted that such would look into changing the period which allowed people vote in areas where they have stayed for three months.

recommendation

He said the recommendation was to change that period to at least six months. Bhembe said they were also looking at making changes in period for checking of voters roll from 14 days upwards in order to allow voters to have enough time to check the voters roll and identify any errors and names of people who had registered from areas where they did not originate from.
He also stated that they were also working around amending the number of nominees from the three to 20. He said they aimed to make it four upwards in order to allow inclusion of all groups like the youth, disabled one, women and men. He said the minimum of three nominees showed that already one group was left out.

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