IEC

IEC elections 2021: Official municipal election date gazetted

It’s official, Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Dr Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma has set the municipal election date.

IEC

IEC Municipal Elections 2021 Update: Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (CoGTA), Dr Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma has gazetted the date of the municipal elections scheduled for 01 November 2021. 

This will be the sixth municipal election held in South Africa since the end of apartheid in 1994. She gazetted the date on Monday 20 September.

To comply with statutory and constitutional obligations, the Minister has to gazette the date of the coming elections. The gazette was published as required by section 150 of the Constitution, read with the Municipal Structures Act, which prescribes that at the end of a five-year term of local government, elections must be held within a period of 90 days. 

Gazetting of the election date means that the IEC will seal the voters’ roll. The gazetting of the date has now taken the country a step closer to voting day. 

“We urge all South Africans who will be embarking on campaigns and canvassing for votes to do so responsibly, while respecting the Covid regulations and protocols,” Dlamini-Zuma said in a statement released on Monday.

“Once the election results are confirmed, councils for all 48 districts, 8 metropolitan and 205 local municipalities in each of the country’s nine provinces will be elected.

With the gazetting done, we are now all looking towards voting day. We urge all South Africans to ensure peaceful, credible, free and fair municipal elections,” she said.

“With the voters roll sealed, I hope that South Africans, especially the women, youth, persons with disabilities and people in rural areas under different traditional authorities had an opportunity to register,” she said.

“We are encouraged by the numbers of citizens who went out to over 23 000 voting stations to register to vote on 01 November 2021. The IEC will over the course of the week release the actual statistics and the status of our voters roll,” she said.