…as BAP leader reiterates concerns about IEC’s “lack of preparedness” for crucial polls

Silence Charumbira/Herbert Moyo

BASOTHO Action Party (BAP) leader, Nqosa Mahao, says he fears “post-election controversy” due to the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC)’s “lack of preparedness” to handle Friday’s eagerly anticipated general elections.

Professor Mahao told the Sunday Express next Friday’s polls would probably be the “most hard-fought” due to various factors including what he described as an unusual trend in which some parties had spent colossal amounts of money during the campaign period. While he did not single out any party, most of the established parties have accused business mogul, Sam Matekane’s Revolution for Prosperity (RFP) of splurging huge amounts of cash to lure their supporters to the RFP since its formation in March this year.

The monetisation of the elections, Prof Mahao said, was happening at a time when the IEC was “far less prepared to conduct the polls than at any other time in recent years”.

Elaborating on the IEC’s lack of preparedness, he reiterated his previous concerns about a faulty voters’ roll wherein people’s names were duplicated, resulting in them appearing at various polling stations. Despite the IEC’s reassurances, there are still widespread concerns that this could allow people to vote more than once at different polling stations thus affecting the credibility of the polls.

Asked if he felt the IEC had done its job well, Prof Mahao quipped, “far from it”.

“First of all, these elections are happening in the context of a very unusual environment. Then there is the IEC which is far less prepared than at any other time in recent years. These will be the most hard-fought and unpredictable elections: there are far too many parties in the game.

“The environment has also been affected by the extraordinary lengths to which other parties have decided to make democracy a money-driven business such that you don’t quite know whether these elections will be testing what the electorate want or what money wants. It is very unusual by Lesotho standards. Therefore, that makes the outcome terribly unpredictable.

“In terms of the organisation of the elections, the IEC is terribly ill-prepared. Those things (shambolic voters’ roll) come to mind. But also, the IEC is unusually underfunded in this election. So, you have an unusual environment and an unusually poor level of preparation.”

Due to this and other concerns, Prof Mahao said he was worried that the elections might end up being very controversial. As a result of these fears, he said his party had even held a prayer meeting on Thursday seeking divine intervention to ensure that there would not be any “post-election controversy”. He however, would not say what that ‘controversy’ entailed.

“We are worried that these elections might end up being very controversial. Yesterday (Thursday) we hosted a prayer meeting just to pray that the elections are run properly. So, we just pray that all these elements that throw in a lot of confusion should not result in post-election controversy,” he added.

His concerns about the IEC’s lack of preparedness are widely shared by other parties.

In one of the videos posted to social media last week, questions are raised over the duplication of names of voters in various constituencies. The discrepancies appear to be widespread in all 10 districts.

In the video which details the alleged irregularities, the narrator asks, “why did the IEC repeat some people’s names in different polling stations and districts, thus making it easier to rig an election?”

Screenshots from various polling stations are presented in the widely shared video as evidence of the IEC’s shortcomings.

Apart from the “faulty” voters’ roll, the IEC is also accused of refusing to release the names of the people who registered as first-time voters during the registration exercise.

The IEC has also been accused of refusing to release the names of early voters who cast their votes on Friday. It has been further accused of refusing to allow political parties to observe the early voting process. Early voting is for people at the country’s various diplomatic missions and members of the security agencies. The latter have to maintain law and order during the actual polling day, hence why they are allowed to vote early.

But the IEC has reacted angrily to all these allegations. Not only has the electoral body issued a statement denying the allegations, it has also threatened “criminal and civil” action against anyone sharing what it calls “misinformation concerning the voters roll”.