ConCourt to make final decision on municipal election postponement
The commission is also seeking an order that the municipal councils remain competent until newly-elected councils are declared elected.
All eyes will be on the Constitutional Court which will have to decide whether to grant a petition to postpone the local government elections to next year.
This after the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) filed papers seeking the court to give a greenlight to postpone the elections that are scheduled for October.
‘The application is direct to the Constitutional Court because of a number of reasons, primary of which being that the matter raises weighty constitutional matters involving the balancing of rights enshrined in the Constitution.
‘This court application is an extraordinary one and presumably unprecedented, and is launched on an urgent basis because there is need for certainty on the preparations for the municipal elections,’ said IEC chairperson Glen Mashinini.
Last week, Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma proclaimed the date of the elections as 27 October as necessitated by the law.
However, Mashinini, who has reportedly urged the court to decide before the end of August or early September, says the IEC’s application is urging the ConCourt to authorise the minister to withdraw the notice, and instead set a date before 28 February 2022.
The commission is also seeking an order that the municipal councils remain competent until newly-elected councils are declared elected.
‘The IEC asks the court to also assume ongoing supervisory jurisdiction, requiring the commission to report to the court periodically on its progress in arranging constitutionally-compliant local government elections in February,’ said Mashinini.
The bid to push back the local elections follows a report by former Deputy Chief Justice Dikgang Moseneke, which states that elections are unlikely to be free and fair if held this year owing to the Covid-19 restrictions.
