Senators enacted the draft organic electoral law on Wednesday, scrapping the use of the voter’s card.
The bill’s approval by the senators concluded the parliamentary process of enacting the law after it was adopted last week by the Chamber of Deputies.
In the draft law, the government suggested to remove the use of voter cards during elections to maximize effectiveness and enhance service delivery by leveraging the country’s gains in ICT.
Introducing the Bill on Wednesday, the Minister of Local Government, Anastase Shyaka, informed senators that one of the reasons why changes to the electoral law were made is to leverage technology.
He said it would be enough to identify voters by looking at their ID cards to cast their votes as opposed to the present scheme where cards are checked for voters.
“We have always used a voter’s card to vote but in line with commitment to smart elections, it looks like the voter’s card is a needless burden. The card doesn’t add anything on the documentation we need in order to vote given that the Rwandan National Identity Card is good enough,” he told senators.
The National Electoral Commission (NEC) Executive Secretary, Charles Munyaneza, revealed to journalists that it was costly for nothing to use voters cards during elections because people carrying their ID cards were already allowed to vote.
He said it would save the government about Rwf200 million that would be spent on all elections such as presidential or parliamentary elections to scrap the use of voter cards.
The money is usually spent on printing and distributing voter’s cards, he said.
“It’s one of the reasons we are scrapping this. It was an unnecessary burden on the treasury,” Munyaneza said.
The passage of the electoral law needed the approval of both parliamentary chambers because it is an organic law.
The law has also been revised to accommodate future changes to the City of Kigali’s governance, which will see the three districts of the latter lose their District Councils and Executive Committees.
“The main reason is based on the current development of technology in our country and the need to have a better governed capital city,” Shyaka told senators.
A goverment proposal that awaits approval by Parliament seeks to remove legal personality for all three districts of the City of Kigali and make the City of Kigali the only office that decides what is being accomplished in all parts of the capital.
Once the law is adopted, all City of Kigali choices will be produced at the City Hall.