Smooth voting process on Silhouette |09 September 2016

Ninety-six out of 173 people who were supposed to vote at a special station on Silhouette for the National Assembly election cast their votes yesterday.

Only people residing or working on Silhouette and those from North Island were eligible to vote.

Voting was held from 9am to 1pm in the Silhouette community centre at La Passe.

Originally only 168 voters were on the special list but five pensioners, residents of Silhouette, did not have their names on the special list but their names appeared on the inner island list. Arrangements were made by the officer in charge, Justin Mathiot, with the approval of the office of the electoral commission and the three political parties’ polling agents (Parti Lepep, Seychelles Patriotic Movement and Linyon Demokratik Seselwa), their names were added on the list and they were able to vote. That brought the total number of voters on that special list to 173.

Mr Mathiot explained that last year in the presidential election Silhouette was an all-station and anybody who was on Silhouette on polling day was able to vote.

“But this time Silhouette is a special station where only the names sent to the election bureau by Silhouette and North Island are eligible to vote. Apparently we have discovered that five pensioners living on Silhouette were not on the list and upon checking it seems that only the workers’ names were included on the list and upon verification with the island manager who certified in our occurrence log book and with the approval of all concern, they were able to vote”.

The island manager Gilbert Esparon, who was the first person to vote yesterday, said there are fifteen residents living permanently on Silhouette for more than twenty-five years.

Voting went in a calm and quiet atmosphere in the scrutiny of local observers, Citizens for Democracy Watch Seychelles (CDWS) and ARID and also international observers namely, the Indian Ocean Commission (COI), the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and La Francophonie.

President James Michel, who is also the leader of Parti Lepep, also visited the station.  

There were very few people in the line at any time and the last voter to cast his vote at 12.59pm was Ziad Bertin, who works on Silhouette.

He later said he had planned to vote earlier but overslept due to fatigue.

Mr Mathiot said he was very happy with the way the election went except for issues concerning the pensioners.

He said people who came and their names were not on the list can still vote in their district on Saturday and this also applies to those who did not come to vote yesterday.

Voting continues today on the outer islands.