The Electoral Commission of SA's decision to reopen candidates' registration for the municipal elections has been met with fury by opposition parties while some experts believe it was “reasonable”.
The IEC, which has come under sharp scrutiny after the Constitutional Court ruling dismissing its application to postpone the local government elections to next year, insisted that its decision to reopen candidate registrations was based on solid legal advice.
IEC chairperson Sam Mashinini said reopening the candidate registration process was part of the amendments to the electoral timetable that were triggered by the reopening of the voter registration process.
“This is permitted by the ConCourt order, which makes it clear the commission is entitled to publish such amendments to the current timetable as may be readably necessary. This includes setting a new deadline for candidate registration,” Mashinini said.
Mashinini said those who were yet to register as voters on the September 10-19 registration weekend would also be given an opportunity to register as candidates.
But former IEC vice chairperson Terry Tselane said the IEC was operating beyond the court order by opening up the candidate registration process.
“The three main things were concluded in the timetable before the court order, including the closing of the voters’ roll, the proclamation and the candidate nomination. The court only took things out of the timetable, which is the voters’ roll and the proclamation, deliberately,” Tselane said.
The IEC's decision will give the ANC and other affected parties another opportunity to field candidates they failed to register. The ANC failed to register candidates in 93 municipalities and blamed the blunder on the commission's IT system.
The IFP said it rejected the commission's interpretation of the Constitutional Court ruling as “political”, not legal.
“We are vehemently opposed to their stance in granting the ANC a second chance, when back in 2011 the IFP was not granted the same, nor were there any favours done for the NFP in 2016,” said party spokesperson Mkhuleko Hlengwa.
“The independence, credibility and integrity of the IEC is now in question. Indeed, it is a sad day for our democracy when we find that our electoral commission, a Chapter 9 institution, has been left sorely wanting.”
DA federal council leader Helen Zille said the party was consulting its lawyers in a bid to overturn the decision by the IEC. She said the decision bordered on illegality and “a plan to give unfair advantage to the ANC”.
“It is a transparent strategy to benefit the ANC, and would go some way to explaining why the ANC withdrew its appeal to the Electoral Court to have the candidate registration deadline lifted. Why would they have done that if they did not have a fallback position? Now their plan B has been revealed,” Zille said.
Mashinini said the commission was aware that other political parties who were consulted were opposed to the decision but insisted that it was reasonable to ensure free and fair elections.
The commission had, however, argued before the Constitutional Court in opposing a relief sought by the EFF that it would be impossible to hold elections by the end of October if the candidates list process was reopened.
Executive director of the Council for the Advancement of the South African Constitution, Lawson Naidoo, said the IEC’s explanation was reasonable, even though it was difficult to conclude that it was flowing from the Constitutional Court ruling.
“What flows from the opening of the voter registration weekend is that there will be a number of voters on the voters’ roll after that and in terms of electoral law, anybody who is on the voters’ roll is eligible to stand as a candidate. I am assuming that the IEC is interpreting the order to mean that if there are people who are newly eligible to be candidates, they have to open the candidate registration,” Naidoo said.
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