Johannesburg - The Electoral Commission of SA (IEC) has shot down the EFF's bid to have the deadline for submitting candidate nomination lists for the local government elections extended due to the current Covid-19-enforced restrictions on gatherings.
The EFF this week asked the Constitutional Court to intervene in the IEC’s application to have the municipal polls scheduled for October 27 postponed until February next year.
The apex court are hearing oral arguments in the commission’s attempt to have the election date moved today.
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Although the EFF backs the commission’s attempt to have the elections pushed back, it has asked the apex court to direct President Cyril Ramaphosa, Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Dr. Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma and the national coronavirus command council to permit gatherings of more than 100 people to allow political parties to conclude nominations for candidate councillors.
Political parties and independents have until Monday, August 23 to submit their nomination lists to the IEC in the designated 257 district and local offices across the country.
However, IEC chairperson Glen Mashinini told the Constitutional Court on Wednesday that it would be an impossible feat to extend the deadline as the timetable for the municipal polls has already been squeezed into a tight six-week time frame.
Mashinini said the EFF's move would significantly reduce the available time.
The commission has two parallel election timetables in the event that its bid to have the polls postponed does not succeed.
According to Mashinini, within the six-week period the IEC must prepare, print, package and distribute the proportional representation ballots in 205 local and 44 district municipalities.
It also needs to prepare 4 468 unique ward ballots, which must be printed and packaged and then transported to the 249 sites to be further distributed to 23 151 voting districts.
”Any extension of the candidate nomination cut-off date would require extensions of the related subsequent steps and ultimately reduce the period for preparing and distributing the ward and proportional representation ballots,” explained Mashinini.
The commission still has to determine whether the nominated candidates comply with statutory requirements and has to notify registered political parties of any non-compliance and give them an opportunity to comply by Friday, August 27.
Following consultations with members of its national party liaison committee, the IEC moved the deadline for submitting candidate nominations from August 16 to August 23, due to the failure to hold a voter registration weekend last month.
Mashinini added that the relief sought by the EFF related to internal matters of political parties and those responsible for the government’s Covid-19 response.
The IEC has undertaken to abide by the court’s decision on the EFF’s bid to have gatherings of more than 100 allowed.
In its submissions, written by advocates Wim Trengove SC, Steven Budlender SC, Isabella Kentridge, Michael Mbikiwa and Thabang Pooe this week, the commission warned that in South Africa, political campaigning has historically always included political gatherings and that there is a real risk that political parties, candidates, and the public may ignore restrictions.
”If such gatherings occur, medical experts tell us that there are substantial risks to life and limb, at least until South Africa has vaccinated a far greater portion of the population,” read the submissions.
loyiso.sidimba@inl.co.za
Political Bureau