Botswana’s Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) has filed notice of intention to contest a High Court order allowing the opposition Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC) to inspect election material as part of the ongoing challenge of last year’s polls.
This follows a decision by the High Court to grant the UDC permission to inspect the election material as per their request.
In papers filed with the High Court in Gaborone, the IEC states that it “objects to the inspection of the cast ballots, spoiled ballots, unused ballots, ballot paper verification account, statistics and/or ballot papers issued per polling station and the ballot envelope account.”
The body argued that the UDC has “failed to demonstrate good or sufficient cause to inspect the documents in question.”
It said the documents are “irrelevant to proving and/or disproving any facts in issue”.
In one of the cases, losing UDC candidate, Noah Salakae, blames his loss on irregularities where some ballot boxes went missing at polling stations in the constituency which he was contesting for.
KO/jn/APA