General elections 2020 |20 October 2020
The presentation of certificates to electoral officers and their deputies (Photo: Thomas Meriton)
Final briefing for electoral officers and their deputies
The Electoral Commission Seychelles met with all the electoral officers (EO) and their deputies for a briefing yesterday as part of the final preparations for the October 22-24 presidential and legislative elections.
A training was organised by the Electoral Commission and The Guy Morel Institute for all the electoral officers and their deputies in order to ensure the standardisation of the processes on Election Day.
Nine hundred and twenty-three (923) people have been trained to work for the upcoming presidential and legislative elections, out of whom are 33 electoral officers and 83 deputy electoral officers.
The remaining 807 assistant electoral officers were trained by the electoral officers.
During the meeting yesterday, the electoral officers and their deputies received their certificates from the chairperson of the Electoral Commission, Danny Lucas, and the executive director of The Guy Morel Institute, Shella Mohideen.
The meeting, held at the International Conference Centre Seychelles (ICCS), was attended by the chief electoral officer, Manuella Amesbury and representatives of the office of the Electoral Commission Seychelles.
Mr Lucas noted that he appreciates the effort put forward by the electoral officers in completing the refresher successfully.
“We commend you for your dedication in making the upcoming elections work. The Electoral Commission and Seychelles count on you to have a good elections,” said Mr Lucas.
Ms Mohideen noted that the training was mainly a refresher as many people have already worked in previous elections.
“This training was an occasion for the already experienced electoral officers and the new deputy electoral officers to come together to revisit the procedures of the elections, taking into consideration the new amendments. It also provided all participants with the opportunity to look into the challenges and constraints that they had to face in the past and how to tackle them. The six days they spent at The Guy Morel Institute will definitely help them when performing their duties,” she explained.
Mrs Amesbury thanked all the electoral officers and their deputies for all their hard work.
“We are ready for the elections. The training was focused mostly on the amendments and standardisation of the processes of elections. With the changes in the law, with the introduction of alphabetical voting, each station will have different facilities. The electoral officers will be in charge of the whole station and the deputies will be responsible for a specific facility. We are asking the public to come vote early to facilitate the process!”
Asked how the results will be announced, Mrs Amesbury stated that “at this point we will not talk about this. We have our internal plan and it will be announced at a different time”.
Regarding the education of the population on how to vote, the chief electoral officer noted that “spots are being aired on television, radio and on social media. We are taking the concerns of the public and working on it”.
Representatives from the health department, Ministry of Education, and PUC were supposed to brief the electoral officers and their deputies on their arrangements, but they did not turn up. Only DRDM and Red Cross updated the officials about their plan of action starting on October 22 in all polling stations.
Vidya Gappy
