Ballot blues: SA’s elections quandary

Even if a court gives the go-ahead to postpone the local government elections, scheduled for October 27, a myriad of legal and political ramifications can be expected, says Prof Erwin Schwella of the Hugenote Kollege in Wellington.

Schwella, who is the dean of the college’s School of Innovation, was reacting to the announcement by the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) that it has decided to ask a court to postpone the local elections, as proposed by former deputy chief justice Dikgang Moseneke.

Moseneke chaired an inquiry into whether it would be possible to hold free and fair elections in October, given the Covid-19 pandemic. The answer, made public last Tuesday (July 20), was ‘no’.

“Having considered all the submissions, 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 [elections] scheduled for the month of October 2021 will be held in a free and fair manner as required by the peremptory provisions of the Constitution and related legislation,” Moseneke concluded.

Commission chairperson Glen Mashinini says that the commission unanimously accepted the findings of the Moseneke report. As a result, the national voter registration weekend scheduled for this weekend (July 31–August 1) was postponed.

While President Cyril Ramaphosa had announced the October election date earlier this year, it had yet to be formally gazetted by Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma.

“There are basically two routes the IEC can follow to get the elections postponed. The one is to go through Parliament to amend the Constitution,” says Schwella.

However, this will be an onerous political process, because the amendment of the Constitution is protected by very strict measures, he says.

The other route, according to Schwella, is to ask a court of competent jurisdiction to authorise holding the elections outside of the constitutionally prescribed time period.

“It will have to be hinged on the aspect that it is not possible, currently, to hold free and fair elections,” says Schwella.

Schwella says he is not convinced that this option will have a desirable outcome either.

WATCH: Prof Erwin Schwella chats to journalist Izak du Plessis about the postponing of the elections, possible challenges, and ramifications.