Local govt elections: Calls for voter verification

MANZINI - Foul play is suspected in the local government elections registration and concerned voters want the voters’ roll to be thoroughly scrutinised before the actual voting exercise.

In fact, members of constituency councils, mainly chiefdom councillors (bucopho) and constituency headmen (tindvuna tetinkhundla) have been linked to the suspected foul play.

Some urban area residents claim that there was a high number of people who resided outside the urban area boundaries, who had registered for the local government elections, which started on January 16, 2023 and closed on March 10, 2023.

Period

The registration period was extended by the Ministry of Housing and Development from February 24, 2023.

The ministry said in the urban areas, there were people who lived in informal settlements and they qualified to vote in the local government elections. However, they said since they resided in informal settlements, they did not have plot numbers or utility bills, which they could use as proof of residence in order to register for the local government elections.

Therefore, they said members of the constituency council in that city, mainly the chiefdom councillors, were given powers to sign affidavits for these residents, which they would use to register for the local government elections.

However, according to the concerned residents, some of the members of the tinkhundla

councils have allegedly abused these powers and signed affidavits for people who reside outside the urban area. They claimed that this was purportedly done by members of the tinkhundla councils who also wanted to stand for the local government elections and held the belief that the supposed unqualified voters would vote for them.

“We have raised this with the registration officers and local authorities and we believe it has reached the ministry.

“We want the verification process of the voters’ roll to be intense this time around so that all the unqualified voters can be removed from the voters’ roll,” they said.

Again, the concerned voters said the fact that the Urban Government Act of 1969 allowed members of tinkhundla

council to also contest in the local government elections, gave the other contestants an unfair competition.

They said this was because the members of tinkhundla council had access to resources of the central government, which they use to their advantage when campaigning.

Distribute

For example, they said recently, the National Disaster Management Agency (NDMA) gave chiefdom councillors bags of rice to distribute to the needy members in their communities. They claimed that as they distributed the bags of rice, they also talked about the local government elections, which was not only unfair, but also illegal, as campaigning at this stage was not allowed.

The Ministry of Housing and Urban Development, in particular the Principal Secretary (PS), Clifford Mamba was contacted about the matter. He said the issue, which this publication had raised was disappointing and if such was true, it was quite disturbing.