Concern over foreign mission envelopes

LOBAMBA – Senators have called on Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs Pholile Shakantu to look into the issue of foreign mission envelopes during the counting of votes at elections.

The concern was raised by Senator Busi Dlamini, who shared that in her experience in the elections, while witnessing it at her constituency, there was an envelope that carried votes from outside the country.

These are people referred to as ‘diaspora’, the dispersion or spread of people from their original homeland due to varying reasons, from furthering studies, work and many others.

The legislator highlighted that the people entrusted with these envelopes for the purpose of counting the votes and merging them with the others, were not doing so in transparency.

She said the tendency was that they only announced that these were foreign mission votes but no one was actually allowed to witness the counting of such votes, something which she said was opening a door for dishonesty.

“We want to get clarity from the minister on the issue of the foreign mission envelopes; who monitors them? Who has the responsibility to count the votes in it or it goes straight to EBC without being looked into?” she asked.

Senator Chief Zabeni Shiba was equally concerned on the matter and supported Dlamini for raising it.

This was during the debate on the Elections (Amendment) Bill, 2023, which the minister requested that it be referred to the portfolio committee. It is worth mentioning that the Bill was adopted in the House of Assembly, with amendments.

When responding to the concerns, the minister shared that ambassadors of Eswatini in the different countries had been trained on the processes of elections and were currently in the process of registering people, who wished to participate in the elections while outside the country.

She said the legislation sought to bring transparency on all the processes under special voting or foreign mission.

Response

However, her response did not hold any water for Senator Busi, who submitted that the minister should not scratch the surface on the matter but be clear on how this would be handled in the current elections, because it had been going on for far too long.

“I have been in elections for at least six times and I witnessed this thing. The envelope comes with a police officer and a government employee, who is not even part of the officials from the EBC. After witnessing the casting of the votes and waiting for the counting to commence, they would then announce that there is an envelope from the foreign mission, with the help of at least one of the EBC officials. They are the only ones who have power over the envelope, not even the police have authority over it,” she submitted.

Dlamini said what boggled the mind was that the envelope sometimes contained a large number of votes from countries where one would not expect emaSwati to be that many and in the countries where there was a high concentration of emaSwati, the number was not so big.

She made an example that one would expect the number of emaSwati residing in South Africa (SA) to be big because there were people working in the mines and other industries, while a large number of students furthering their studies in the neighbouring country was also big.

“It leaves a lot to be desired when an envelope from SA has less number of votes than an envelope from the United Kingdom, where we do have emaSwati but not as many as they are in the neighbouring country. It may happen that the awareness on the elections is not as sharp as it is in the UK but it becomes suspicious when the envelopes comes. I implore the minister to keep a close eye on this matter,” she said.

Minister Shakantu assured the senators that the issue would be looked into to ensure transparency and that the EBC officials should also check the votes against the voters’ roll to ensure that everybody who voted in the special voting is eligible to vote and there are no issues of foul play.

Meanwhile, Senator Vuka Masilela was of the view that the Bill would cause confusion and not place the country in a good position with international observers, given that the election process was already underway with the registration having commenced already.

His contention was that the legislation should have been long amended to be in uniform with the activities of the elections.

Deputy Senate President Ndumiso Mdluli held a different view, stating that all the legislations that had come to Parliament were subject to amending in future because they were not always 100 per cent, hence the need to amend to make the operations of that legislation balance.