Wa-hey! You don’t have to ask us twice if we’d like an additional long weekend onto our calendar – especially when this ‘bonus break’ falls on a Monday. An extra public holiday for 2021 will soon be written into law, and South Africans will only have to wait another six weeks for a state-mandated day off.
Why, we hear you ask? It’s all down to the 2021 Local Elections. By law, the day we are all expected to go to the ballot boxes MUST be declared a public holiday, to allow every citizen the best possible chance of having enough time to take part in the democratic process. Thembelani Mazibuko, from SA’s Electoral Institute, best explains the process:
“This, in principle, allows for a free and fair election. Therefore the President will declare Voting Day a public holiday. The IEC has to issue a request to the Minister of Home Affairs to facilitate this process. Once it has been officially gazetted, it will then be announced by the President as a public holiday to allow all people to vote.“
It has been officially declared that MONDAY 1 NOVEMBER will be when the 2021 Local Elections are held – creating a three-day break for most working SA citizens. Of course, this comes with a caveat:
People have been warned to plan their routine well in advance, so they don’t abuse the extended weekend by not actually voting – due to self-inflicted logistical challenges.
If you are planning to sneak a quick trip away between 29 October and 1 November, it is vital that you allow time to go and put your ‘X’ in the box. The bonus public holiday is set to be announced ‘within a matter of days‘.
Adding our voting day into the mix, we can now see that there are SIX public holidays left in the last few months of 2021. There’s even a nice little Christmas present. The Day of Goodwill falls on a Sunday, meaning the official day off will roll over to Monday, too. The 2021 calendar has done us some real favours, here.