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Wallace Ruzvidzo Herald Reporter
A DELEGATION from Botswana’s Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) is in Zimbabwe on a benchmarking mission as that country prepares to hold its general elections this year.
The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) will assist their Botswana counterparts on the management of electoral activities as well as the conducting of polls.
Speaking at a media conference in Harare yesterday, ZEC’s chief elections office Mr Utoile Silaigwana said the two-member delegation’s visit was part of their preparatory work ahead of general elections scheduled for this year.
The delegation comprises Osupile Maroba, who is the chief public relations officer, and Malefho Gopolang, the policy development and voter education manager.
“A two-member delegation from the Independent Electoral Commission of the Republic of Botswana has visited the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission on a benchmarking mission in preparation for the October 2024 Botswana General Elections.
“The benchmarking exercise will mainly focus on the management of electoral activities and the conduct of elections,” he said.
Mr Silaigwana said Botswana’s IEC would also learn how to hold publicity activities as well as go about rebranding initiatives during their stay here. The visit also served as an endorsement of Zimbabwe’s free, fair, credible and transparent harmonised elections held last year.
“ZEC will also illustrate publicity activities such as its radio programmes, use of social media platforms and the website as well as rebranding initiatives to the visitors. “Despite aspersions cast by some election observers on Zimbabwe’s elections, the visits are an endorsement of professionalism characteristic of ZEC’s electoral management, especially in the conduct of credible elections,” he said.
Mr Silaigwana said the Botswana IEC was not the first to come on a benchmarking expedition to Zimbabwe, as election managers in other countries including Lesotho and Namibia had made such visits before. “The visit is one among others made in the past by several regional electoral management bodies and in Africa as a whole. These organisations include the Independent Electoral Commission of Lesotho and the National Electoral Board of Ethiopia.
“In September 2018, a delegation from the National Board of Ethiopia visited ZEC on a learning mission in preparation for Ethiopia’s 2020 General Elections. The delegation was led by the electoral management body’s Chairperson, Ambassador Samia Zekaria Gutu who expressed interest in adopting Biometric Voter Registration which has been successfully implemented in Zimbabwe,” he said.
Zimbabwe successfully held its general elections last year which were endorsed by SADC, with countries in the bloc expressing their interest in wanting to learn how the country had managed to uphold peace before, during and after the elections.
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