AS part of the Southern African Development Community commitment to support sustainable democracy, Electoral Management Bodies (EMBs) need to improve election conduct in the region and strengthen their electoral management capacities.
The remark was made yesterday in Dar es Salaam by Dr John Jingu, the Permanent Secretary in the Prime Minister’s Office (Policy, Parliament, and Coordination) as he closed a workshop for the Electoral Commissions Forum of SADC Countries (ECF-SADC) new Commissioners and senior staff of the bloc’s EMBs.
Dr Jingu stated that as participants return to their respective countries to carry out their mandates, they have a significant role to play in ensuring elections are carried out efficiently, which will ensure peace and tranquility.
“Because the training covered several topics aimed at introducing you to concepts, guiding principles, good practices, and emerging trends in the field of electoral management,” he said, adding that community members have confidence in integrity of theofficers in attendance.
He further said participants also learnt about introduction to democracy and guiding principles of election management, international electoral benchmarking and obligations for democratic elections, emerging trends in electoral disputes adjudication and electoral justice.
The ECF-SADC is a self-governing regional organisation in which each SADC member state is represented by its own electoral management body. The Government of Botswana hosts the Forum, which has been in place since July 1998.
More than 50 senior officers attended the four-day workshop (22-25 November) this year from the nine-member state co-organised by ECF — SADC, International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA) and NEC.
The workshop’s participants came from nine member commissions: Botswana, Lesotho, Seychelles, Namibia, Malawi, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
The capacity-building workshop was designed and planned to introduce newly appointed electoral commissioners and senior staff of Electoral Management Bodies to the concepts, guiding principles, good practices, and emerging trends in the field of electoral management.
The training, according to retired High Court Judge Thomas Mihayo, was designed to help the new Commissioners understand their responsibilities and how to carry them out.
“We have also seen what other countries are doing in terms of conducting free, fair, and credible elections, as well as the challenges they face.” It is a training that benefits us, and we have also learned how other countries deal with their problems,” he said.
High Court Judge and NEC member, Asina Omari praised the training’s effectiveness, as it reminded and educated new commissioners that election commissions in SADC countries had committed themselves to conducting credible elections.
“It has helped us learn how to interact with various stakeholders, how technology has advanced, and how electoral commissions can leverage social media to ensure election education reaches all people in order to prevent misinformation and disinformation,” said Judge Omari.
