The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) says the ballot paper will remain at its Warehouse until next Saturday when it will be distributed to the districts a few days before the Local Government elections.

Civic and Voter Education Manager Mrs. Lydia Macheli told the LENA on Monday that the ballot paper and other election material are being sorted under heavy security presence and watchful eye of political representatives for the safekeeping, transparency and security guard purposes.

She noted that the election material will be transported by road to all the IEC’s district offices while those going to the hard to reach places in the mountains will be airlifted by a helicopter.

The Civic and Voter Education Manager stated that upon arrival in the district's IEC offices, the election material will be distributed to the 950 Electoral Divisions (EDs) in order to be ready ahead of the Local Government elections.

However, Mrs. Macheli was unable to say how many candidates are vying for the 950 EDs saying she does not readily have that statistics.

One of the media practitioners who formed part of the delegation that fetched the ballot paper in South Africa, Mrs. Nthabeleng Seitlheko-Nkoho from Moeletsi Oa Basotho said the ballot paper was under security from the South Africa side up to the Maseru border gate where they also found Police and the army security waiting for their arrival.

She said upon their arrival at the IEC’s Warehouse, they found political parties waiting to receive the ballot paper to check if there was any tempering or not.

Mrs. Seitlheko-Nkoho noted that the political parties’ representatives verified the seal numbers of the ball paper and even took their numbers to ascertain that there was no tempering of any sort.

She described that there will be two ballot papers one for a political party and another one for electing a Community Councilor.

However, she noted that there was one ballot paper for Ts’itsong Community Council in the Quthing district which was not printed since there is no contest after an Independent Candidate in the area was not challenged.

‘Our role as representatives of the media was to play the observation role as well as for the IEC to promote transparency by including the media to be part of the elections process in order to promote trust in the whole process,’ she commented.

The Local Government elections were first held in 2005 in the country where people are given a chance to elect representatives at community level for developmental projects.