Lötter’s fight for democracy ends

THE by-election in Ward 22 of AbaQulusi Municipality having taken place, it would seem that André Lötter’s year-long, one-man crusade is over. And he didn’t even get to stand as an independent candidate, as he originally intended to over a year ago.

It was his resignation from the ANC, as its councillor in Ward 22, back in January 2013, that made a by-election in that Ward necessary. But following the voter registration for the by-election, Lötter contended that the process was flawed, and that irregular voters had been bussed in to boost supporter numbers for two of the contesting political parties.

The IEC disagreed, so Lötter went to the Electoral Court and eventually to the Constitutional Court, and the by-election was postponed. Seemingly reluctantly, the IEC later removed over 1,500 irregular voters from the voters’ roll following its own investigations (whose methodology has never been revealed), and when Lötter protested again, the IEC removed another 300-plus voters after the by-election had been postponed again.

But not one of these irregular voters were prosecuted although it is an offence to register in a Ward in which you are not resident. Nor, it would appear, was the very likely possibility of political party complicity ever investigated, although it is what Lötter alleged, and it does seem likely given the importance of the result of the by-election in determining the balance of seats and power in the municipal council.

The ANC governs in a coalition with the NFP. Ward 22 was vital for the ANC for that arrangement to continue. So no individual nor a political party had to face the consequences of an apparent case of electoral fraud, and nor, significantly, has there been any indication that the IEC investigated its own staff who had possibly been coerced, bribed or otherwise persuaded to overlook the illegal registrations as they were happening.

Lötter’s battle must have been a lonely one. Only the DA is known to have raised any protest against this infringement of the Electoral Act, and yet it very significantly was an attack on the freeness and fairness and very integrity of the result. He claimed in December that the ANC “is trying very hard to make life unbearable and unsafe for me on the ground, and force me to flee abroad to apply for political asylum a second time in my life”, this after ANC members, seemingly with the support of SAPS members, visited Lötter on his farm near Gluckstadt.

Very definite attempts were made to intimidate Lötter and his wife. Then on the Monday night before the election last week, André Lötter’s vehicle, standing in the yard at his house, was set alight. “Someone is not very happy with the application I brought to have the by-election postponed to give the Police more time to investigate the electoral crimes that were committed in the run-up to the by-election,” he said after this arson attack.

If there was a case of electoral fraud in Ward 22, then the perpetrators appear to have gotten cleanly away with it.

André Lötter may have lost his case with the IEC, the Electoral Court and the Constitutional Court, but Democracy and the people were also the losers.