THE DA says a bad precedent will be set if the Constitutional Court allows the Independent Electoral Commission’s (IEC) application to postpone the local government elections to next year.
The IEC has filed an urgent application in the Constitutional Court to request that the impending local government elections be postponed.
The electoral commission is proposing that the polls be held on 23 February 2022.
DA leader John Steenhuisen said in a statement that should the IEC persist with its application to the Constitutional Court to have the local government elections postponed to February next year, the DA will ask to be joined as a party to their application so that it can put its views in front of the court and use its status as a respondent to fight for a timeous election and voter registration.
“Through our lawyers we have given the IEC a deadline of tomorrow, Friday 6 August, to agree to stick to their prescribed timeframe for holding the elections, and to insert a registration period ahead of the elections along with a mechanism to reopen the voter’s roll in order to add new names,” said Steenhuisen.
“The roll was closed when the election date of 27 October was proclaimed by Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma on 3 August.”
Steenhuisen said failure by the IEC to do so will leave the party no choice but to defend the country’s Constitution and the democratic rights of voters in court.
“Our Constitution prescribes that Local Government Elections must take place within 90 days of the end of the five-year term of municipal councils. It is the IEC’s job – their only job – to see to it that this happens. Even in a disrupted calendar there are other steps that can be taken to ensure that this fundamental democratic right is preserved before looking to change the Constitution,” said Steenhuisen.
“The technicality of not being able to add names to the voter’s roll after the proclamation of the election date – which has now taken place – can be overcome by temporarily suspending the operation of Section 6 of the Municipal Electoral Act, rather than attempting to amend the Constitution in order to delay elections.”
Steenhuisen said it is the Constitutional Court’s duty to protect the Constitution, not change it.
“By our calculations there could be as many as nine million eligible voters whose names are not currently on the roll,” he said.
“If the IEC does not afford them the opportunity to register, we cannot meet the threshold of a free and fair election. It is entirely possible to temporarily set aside Section 6 of the Act, hold a registration weekend by the end of August, and still hold the elections on the 27th of October.”
“We can and must conduct a safe registration period, adhering to all Covid protocols, just as we can and must conduct a safe election on 27 October.”
By postponing the elections, the IEC would be complicit in helping the ANC evade electoral accountability.
The DA will not let that happen, said Steenhuisen.
The IEC said this week that the court application was an ‘extraordinary one and presumably unprecedented’.
“The issues which are core to the application have a bearing on the political rights, rights to life, bodily and psychological integrity and access to health of citizens of the country. The application will undoubtedly offer the Constitutional Court another opportunity to contribute to the evolving jurisprudence of our constitutional order. The application is also launched on an urgent basis because there is need for certainty in the preparations for the municipal elections,” the IEC said in its website.
“The nature of the relief sought by the Commission is largely predicated on the impossibility to perform a constitutional obligation which is the conduct of elections of municipal councils by 1 November 2021 due to the COVID 19 pandemic and the measures government instituted to curb the spread of the virus.”
- Inside Politics
