EC failed to registered new voters adequately
The Electoral Commission’s secretariat has finally gotten down to publishing some voter statistics. The media has been asking for these statistics since the day the elections were announced. It eventually took the Chairperson of the Association of Media Practitioners Seychelles, Rassin Varnier giving a media interview to the main media houses on Monday this week, for the EC to respond soon after by sending some of those stats.
Varnier’s interview made the midday news bulletin over SBC and caught the attention of the public as well as of other partners involved in the forthcoming elections. Last week the chairman of the EC Danny Lucas had told the media that there are more women than men on the Voters’ Register this time around and that there are also over three thousand newly registered voters, but that was the sum of the statistical information the EC deigned to give.
The newly provided stats indicate a lot of voter movement with many transfers. This could partly be attributed to the newly built housing estates under the 24/24/24 programme. There are also just under 4000 new voters on the register since the last elections which took place in 2016. These first time voters range between 18 to 21 years of age. According to population statistics, each year there are about 1500 to 2000 youths who attain voting age, which should translate in around 7000 to 8000 eligible first time voters. The current figure of 3993 indicate that about fifty percent of eligible FTVs bothered to register as a voter for the elections of this weekend.
The total number of eligible voters this year stands at 74634. Of this total those between 24 and 52 years old are the biggest group whereas the elderlies form the smallest number of voters, with the eldest registered voter being 111 years old.
There are 2957 transfers between the districts which is quite a significant number. Grand Anse Praslin is the district with the highest number of transfers with 96 voters transferred there, whereas Ile Perseverance is the only constituency with a minus three figure for transfers
