Ward 22 – the confusion thickens

IT IS very difficult to understand what is happening with the postponed by-election in AbaQulusi Municipality’s Ward 22, the Ward having been without representation in Council since January this year, when Andre Lotter, then representing the ANC, resigned the seat.
One fact seems to be clear – the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) has tacitly admitted that its first “investigation” was significantly flawed.
Following Lotter’s resignation, a by-election was called for April this year, in preparation for which a voter registration opportunity was offered to new residents in that Ward. It has never been proven but it would appear that an orchestrated illegal vote registration campaign occurred in Ward 22, with thousands more voters being registered.
Lotter, who intended to stand as an independent candidate, cried foul. The IEC disagreed; the Electoral Court agreed, and the by-election was postponed.
As a result of the IEC’s “investigations”, hundreds of new (and presumably illegal) voters were removed from the Ward 22 voters roll, and a new by-election date was declared. Lotter cried foul. The IEC disagreed; the Constitutional Court agreed, and the by-election was again postponed. Subsequently, the IEC removed another few hundred voters from the Ward 22 voters roll. The list of people appeared in a three-page advertisement in the Vryheid Herald last week.
This is the tacit admission by the IEC that its initial investigation, and sanitization of the roll, was flawed.
In an added complication in the saga, Lotter has written to the IEC to again register his “indignation” at not being invited to the Party Liaison Committee meeting organised by the IEC in Vryheid on October 7, regarding the by-election in Ward 22. Lotter writes:
“It stands to reason that since the Electoral Court ordered the IEC to include me in the list of candidates for the by-election, that I should be invited to any PLC meeting that meets to discuss the by-election in Ward 22.”
In addition he asks the questions, “Why did the IEC set the by-election down on 27 November 2013 whereas the investigation is still not complete (e.g. on 3 October 2013, the IEC published a notice in the Government Gazette with another +/-340 names of people to remove from the voters’ roll)?
“Why does the IEC assume that everything will be in order by 27 November 2013 and that the by-election will by that date be free and fair if no thorough implementation of the Constitutional Court order regarding the identification of the guilty parties and the sanctions and penalties to impose on them have not been complied with yet?”
Regarding Lotter’s second question, as far as is known, despite the IEC’s and the SAPS’s investigations into the illegal registrations, no individual nor political party has been charged with what was clearly an orchestrated attempt to hijack the by-election in Ward 22.
That is a huge concern in the light of the general election next year.