Voters in Botswana go to the polls this week to elect a new parliament and local government. The diamond-rich nation will become the first to test a new electoral code of conduct adopted by the Southern African Development Community in August.
In many respects, however, this will simply be a dress rehearsal for the tougher challenges that the code is certain to face in the months ahead.
Entitled “Principles and Guidelines Governing Democratic Elections”, the code received the endorsement of regional leaders during a summit of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) held on the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius.
It calls for adherence to internationally accepted norms such as allowing all parties to campaign freely, ensuring equal access to the state media and establishing impartial electoral institutions.
Even though South African President Thabo Mbeki warned in August that SADC member states which disregarded the code could find themselves excluded from the grouping, concern has nonetheless expressed that the guidelines will ultimately not prove enforceable.
“When you read the document, you find that SADC is both the player and the referee. It’s like telling students at the end of the term to set their own examination, write it and mark it,” says Khabele Matlosa of the Johannesburg-based Electoral Institute of Southern Africa (EISA).
Although SADC, the African Union, the Commonwealth and the United Nations will be sending observers to Botswana, an uneventful poll is predicted for the country. The European Union (EU), for its part, has decided against bringing in monitors. Instead, resident diplomatic staff from various EU countries will cast an eye over proceedings on Saturday.
The real test of the SADC electoral code lies elsewhere, possible in the parliamentary elections that are scheduled to be held in Zimbabwe by the end of March next year.
Both the 2000 parliamentary and 2002 presidential poll in that country took place under a cloud, preceded as they were by widespread violence — most of it directed against the opposition Movement for Democratic Change. The state media in Zimbabwe were also openly biased towards the ruling Zanu-PF party.
While a full complement of election observers was on hand to monitor the 2000 vote, the head of the EU mission for the 2002 poll, Pierre Schori, had his visa to Zimbabwe cancelled ahead of the presidential election. The EU later responded to polling irregularities in Zimbabwe by imposing sanctions on Harare.
The Commonwealth team of monitors, which remained in the country, failed to give the 2002 vote a clean bill of health.
Reports say that Harare has agreed to set up an independent electoral commission and increase the number of polling stations for the upcoming election, amongst other measures. However, officials have some way to go before Zimbabwe is squarely in accord with the SADC electoral code.
Mozambican general elections, scheduled for December 1 and 2, may also provide a challenge to the new guidelines. While not having declined observers the right to monitor the poll, their right to monitor the tabulation of votes at the provincial and national level is still under discussion.
as Maputo has announced it will not allow foreign observers to monitor the vote.
“There is no need to close the door (to foreign observers),” Matlosa says. “If SADC countries adhered to electoral procedures, then foreign observers would bar themselves as they did in South Africa (during elections in April).”
“Don’t force observers to become a choir — singing the same song,” he adds.
Even as experts debate the SADC code, Botswana nationals who live overseas and are eligible to vote have already begun casting their ballots.
According to the country’s Independent Electoral Commission, some 2,430 nationals stationed in Australia, Belgium, China, Ethiopia, Japan, Kenya, Namibia, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, Britain and United States will vote before Saturday’s poll.
About 2 000 voting stations have reportedly been established in Botswana itself to enable citizens to elect 57 members of parliament and 490 local government representatives.
While Botswana currently enjoys a healthy economy, its population of about 1,6-million suffers from having the second-highest HIV prevalence rate in the world.
According to the Gaborone-based African Comprehensive HIV/Aids Partnership, an estimated 38,5$ of people aged 15 to 49 are infected with the Aids virus.
This prevalence rate, serious by any measure, is still more worrying when one considers that 68% of Botswana’s population is less than 29 years old. — IPS