IEC reports nodded

Stakeholders from political parties, civil society organisations, the media and security, on Thursday and Friday gathered at the Tendaba Camp in Lower River Region, where they validated the reports of the three regional meetings (held last year) which were geared towards strengthening the electoral system in the country.

The reports highlighted bottlenecks and possible solutions to problems in the country’s electoral processes.

At the meeting, the stakeholders agreed on a new technology as an alternative voter registration process, which is expected to enable the electoral body to issue instant voter ID cards to prospective voters and produce voters registers, which should also contain photographs of the voters.

The main objective of the system is to register prospective voters by taking their biographic details and photographs and make printouts of the voter register containing details and photographs of voters in the field without prospective voters having to go through a lengthy.

The participants also agreed on the maintenance of a credible voter register and improvement of the voter turnout during elections, especially for local level elections.

To facilitate free and fair elections, the participants recommended that IEC should intensify its engagement with media practitioners, security forces, the judiciary and political parties through training, periodic briefings and interactive fora to enhance the performance of their roles in the electoral process.

On capacity building for the IEC staff, participants recommended that one of the local higher Institutions of learning should be encouraged to run professional courses for IEC staff, especially in the areas of human resource management, material management, project planning, ICT, and administrative laws, among others.

For the long term financial independence of IEC, the participants recommended that the electoral body be transformed from a subvented agency to a financially independent governance institution as a long-term plan.