Slow uptake on overseas voter registration

IEC Photo: Flickr / Frank Trimbos

Just in: Panel recommends postponing Local Elections until 2022

It may be the final nail in the coffin for Local Elections in 2021: The IEC-appointed panel ruled that holding a vote in October ‘would not be fair’.

Slow uptake on overseas voter registration

IEC Photo: Flickr / Frank Trimbos

Former Deputy Chief Justice Dikgang Moseneke has presented his findings, after being asked by the Independent Electoral Commission to investigate the feasibility of holding Local Elections in South Africa this year. On Tuesday, the head of the panel revealed that ‘it would not be reasonable’ to go ahead with the voting cycle in October.

Will Local Elections be postponed this year in South Africa?

Instead, Moseneke has recommended pushing the Local Elections, set to take place in less than three months, back no further than February 2022. The legal expert concluded that the pandemic poses too much of a risk to the electorate:

“Having considered all these submissions of stakeholders, applicable law, research on electoral practice during the Covid-19 pandemic and the related science, we conclude that it is not reasonably possible or likely that the local government elections scheduled for the month of October 2021 will be held in a fair and fair manner.”

“We go further, we find that the elections would be free and fair if they were held not later than the month of February 2022. For this year, the risk is too high due to the spread of COVID-19 and the possibility of variants spreading. These concerns are heightened as people will also gather, and politicians cannot campaign in their preferred manner.”

Municipal votes may only be held ‘in 2022’

The news comes as a bitter blow for both the ANC and DA, who were hoping to force through these municipal elections on time. Alas, it’s now likely that Moseneke’s verdict will be upheld, and the chance to vote for local representatives will have to wait a few more months – until more people have been vaccinated, and the threat of COVID has subsided.

  • EFF leader Julius Malema – a long-time advocate for postponing Local Elections – couldn’t wait to say ‘I told you so’…