Electoral commissioners back from overseas mission |12 October 2023

The Electoral Commission Seychelles (ECS) shared its experiences with members of the media yesterday, after taking part in the recent elections in the Kingdom of Eswatini, previously known as Swaziland.

This forms part of ECS’ responsibilities as an Electoral Management Body (EMB) falling under Electoral Commissions Forum of the Southern African Development Community (SADC).

Commissioner Wendy Didon gave details of their missions in the Kingdom of Eswatini at the ECS headquarters at Orion Mall, Victoria.

“The ECF SADC has members which we call EMBs and as one we are responsible to take part by being observers, whenever there is an election in any of the member countries,” she said.

This year it was Seychelles’ turn to observe and be in charge of the observation mission.

Mrs Didon said the pre-election mission took place in May this year while the main mission took place from September 20 to October 3.

Seychelles was leading a team of 23 observers from nine countries.

“We deployed the observers for the essential election which took place on September 26 and also for the main which took place on September 29,” she added.

The observers managed to cover 50 constituencies within the four regions of Eswatini and from there they were able to produce and present a preliminary statement to the stakeholders.

“What we managed to benefit from this mission in terms of what we can adopt for Seychelles is the equipment they used during the election process,” she added.

“They used mobile equipment to register which they were able to bring anywhere which they used to verify the voters on the day of the election itself.”

A second lesson that Seychelles could learn from is regarding the involvement of the youth within the exercise.

“They were highly motivated and it was clear that they understood their responsibilities as voters and on the importance of this exercise,” Mrs Didon said.

“This is a good sign in regards to the evolution of the democracy there.”

She also noted the high involvement of women in the election process but remarked that men should have been more active compared to Seychelles.

“Third, we can learn a few lessons on their level of preparedness. They worked hard to put a lot of resources and put into practice what they have planned ahead.

“We have reported that they were ready and elections was held peacefully and calmly. We even congratulated the people of the Kingdom of Eswatini for taking their responsibility in a calm manner,” concluded Mrs Didon.

Mandy Bertin

Photos: Contributed