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Archive -Election

First round of Presidential election 2015 |10 December 2015

ARID releases preliminary report

 

The Association for Rights, Information and Democracy (ARID), a local election observer mission, has issued its preliminary statement on the first round of the presidential election held on December 3, 4 and 5, 2015.

Among the recommendations pointed out by the deputy head of mission Jules Hoareau, the most pertinent ones were: the use of transparent ballot boxes, adequate voter’s education spots on television with sign language as well as on radio, introduction of braille ballot papers for blind voters, review of the regulations to allow voters turning 18 years old on election date the opportunity to cast their vote and blank ballot papers should not be considered as invalid votes but rather as unallocated votes.

This report was presented yesterday at the Citizens Engagement Platform Seychelles (Ceps) offices at Orion Mall in the presence of the head of mission Lucianne Sofola, observers of the Citizens Democracy Watch Seychelles (CDWS), among international observers and other guests.

The report covers the assessment of the electoral process from the pre-election period through to the voting phase and up to polling day and the announcement of the results.

This report describes the main findings of the mission, from the engagement with stakeholders, methodology, campaigning period, election commission, complaints as well as media and it makes recommendations to the relevant election stakeholders in Seychelles for future improvements.

It will be shared with the Electoral Commission (EC), political parties and candidates who contested the elections and the media.

Mr Hoareau said lack of appropriate legal framework and legislation is a grave concern to ARID.

“For example, the constitution is silent on the issue of change in the government and in the presidency. How does one president hand over office to a new president, this is a serious concern. We also have some concerns on the election act. The issue of valid vote and vote cast. A blank vote cast is not necessarily an invalid vote, it should be treated as an unallocated vote. Another important issue is the right of Seychellois living abroad to vote in their respective country of residence,” he said.

ARID registered numerous complaints related to vote buying, distribution of goodies and gifts to voters and even reports of illegal substances such as drugs being given for free to drug addict voters in the district of Mont Fleuri, Mont Buxton and Les Mamelles.

“We had complaints about activists from some political parties paying voters up to R500.  We even noticed check points in most districts whereby political parties were regrouping voters,” said Mr Hoareau.

ARID noted the concerns highlighted by other stakeholders, namely the political parties, about the lack of education and information from the EC explaining the amendments in the election law 2014 whereby citizens turning 18 years are no longer automatically added to the voter’s register.

“Given all these issues, a second round with the same voter’s roll will further compromise the credibility of this election as on a second count the same group of ‘turn away voters’ will be disenfranchised again, hence violating their constitutional rights as citizens,” Mr Hoareau noted.

They also released their new hotline (2777004) where members of the public are encouraged to report at any given time any incident, suspicion or anything they find warrants the attention of the observers.

After none of the six candidates could pull off the 50% plus one vote for an outright majority in the first round of the presidential election, a run-off is necessary to decide who between Parti Lepep’s James Michel and Seychelles National Party’s (SNP) Wavel Ramkalawan will become the next President.

The two men secured the most votes in the December 3-5 first round.

Out of the 70,943 eligible voters, there were a total of 62,004 votes cast among which 60,538 were valid votes and 1,466 rejected ballots. The voter turnout was 87.4%.

Incumbent President Michel won 28,911 votes (47.76%), while Mr Ramkalawan scored 21,391 votes (35.33%).

 

 

 

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