SBC CAUSE UNNECESSARY VOTER PANIC
The Opposition immediately protested to Mr. Anaclet Tirant, the Assistant Electoral Commissioner about the apparent decision to compel the electorate to produce an updated National Identification card before they can vote, just 9 days before the election. The immediate impression was that this was yet another tactic by the ruling party to ‘steal’ the elections from the opposition.
The opposition was justified in their protest because under section 25 (1) of the Electoral Act a person wishing to vote shall produce the National Identity card of the person or satisfy the Electoral Officer of his identity. In other words even if his ID card has expired, as long as he can satisfy the Electoral Officer that he is indeed who he say he is he will be allowed to vote. Clearly SBC is not ‘au fait’ with the Electoral Act or more likely the corporation chose to turn a blind eye to its contents.
Whatever the reason behind SBC’s deliberate manipulation of what they were told by the Assistant Electoral Commissioner, the result was that the next day a large crowd turned up at the ID card office at Oceangate House to get a new card. The queue grew longer and longer up until Thursday 20th July.
The Nouveau Seychelles Weekly approached the Electoral Commissioner’s office on Thursday afternoon to try and clarify the matter and was informed by Mr. Tirant himself that what was broadcast by SBC was not fully what he had told and that they had already taken steps to get SBC to correct their original broadcast.
Many people, it appears, still have either damaged or invalid cards but the good news is that on polling day any form of ID will enable them to cast their vote, although the more such cases there are might result in longer queues at the polling stations.