IEC


Voting results almost completed

Friday, May 20, 2011 No Comments by Zelda

The Independent Electoral Commission had completed results for 95.1% of the country’s voting districts by 07:30 on Friday.

Counting in the North West and Northern Cape was finished.

The North West went to the ANC with 1.8 million votes (74.99%), followed by the Democratic Alliance, with 395 648 votes (16.14%).

The Northern Cape also saw the ANC win the race, obtaining 677 438 votes (63.57%), again followed by the DA with 237 315 votes (22.27%).

Nationally the ANC continued to dominate the leader board after South Africa’s fourth post-democracy local election.

By 07:00, the ANC’s share of the total national vote stood at 20.5 million (63.51%), with the Democratic Alliance at seven million (22.26%).

Seat calculations were 76.26% complete, with 212 seats of a total 278 allocated.

The province with the largest number of seats to be calculated was KwaZulu-Natal, with 25 municipalities left.

In Limpopo 15 seats still had to be allocated, followed by the Eastern Cape and the Free State with 10 each, Gauteng with three and Mpumalanga with two.

Credit to: News 24 and Sapa

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Mulder lay charges against Zuma for ancestor utterance

Monday, May 16, 2011 No Comments by Zelda

The Freedom Front Plus is to lay a charge at the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) against President Jacob Zuma about comments he made to voters in the Vrischgewagt township near Delareyville, the City Press reported on Friday.

But the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) on Saturday said it was not aware of a complaint levelled against ANC President Jacob Zuma by the Freedom Front Plus (FF+).

According to media reports, Zuma said people who turned their backs on the ANC would have to face bad luck and explain themselves to their ancestors when they died, Freedom Front Plus (FF Plus) leader Pieter Mulder said. This was a clear breach of the IEC’s code of conduct, he said.

“Zuma’s actions is firstly intimidating in nature in that he fills voters with fear about the consequences of a vote for any other party than for the ANC, and secondly he abuses his position of traditional authority to influence voters to vote for the ANC,” Mulder said.

The Electoral Code of Conduct banned intimidating behaviour and any action where authority was abused to influence voters to vote in a certain way.

“This complaint against Zuma is being brought against the backdrop of various comments by Zuma and senior ANC members who regularly bombard voters with religious messages and comparisons with the Christian Trinity Godhead.

This behaviour is for the majority of Christians, including the FF Plus, offensive and could be seen as blasphemous. It is indicative of the ANC’s desperateness to gain votes and retain votes in the forthcoming election.”

The ANC’s actions were a consequence of a governing party becoming too strong, the party said. The same would happen if any other party came to power on its own and had to represent all the other different groups and views.

“Coalition politics where more than one party governs together holds the advantage of more checks and balances against the abuse of power,” Mulder said.

Credit to: City Press, Eyewitness News and Sapa

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ANC turmoil in E Cape

Tuesday, March 15, 2011 No Comments by Zelda

The ANC risks missing out on local government elections in Eastern Cape as turmoil in the party reached new highs.

With just ten days to go before all political parties are compelled to submit their candidates, the ANC is waging battles with disgruntled members in court.

Yesterday members from the Buffalo City region served papers on the party notifying the ANC of their intention to interdict the candidate list process.

Things could worsen today as several branches in the Amathole region are expected to take similar legal action against the executive.

If the dispute is unresolved the party could miss the Independent Electoral Commission deadline of March 25 to submit its nominees. And the IEC has made it clear that deadlines will not be moved.

Amid the trouble the ANC’s national executive committee has again sent a delegation of senior leaders to the province in the hope of finally reaching a solution.

The ANC has long struggled to contain divisions in Eastern Cape, with violence breaking out at intervals and various overtures from Luthuli House being rejected.

Yesterday ANC provincial secretary Oscar Mabuyane hit out at the behaviour of some of its members.

“This litigation is an attempt to disorganise the ANC and make sure the ANC does not contest the elections. These cannot be acts of genuine ANC members who feel disgruntled with processes.

“There are moles being used by people within and outside of the organisation . But we are currently working on it (the papers) and we will oppose their application,” he said of the Buffalo City regional matter.

The case is scheduled to be heard at the Grahamstown High Court on March 24 – a day before the IEC’s cut-off date for nominations.

Meanwhile local government MEC Mlibo Qoboshiyane yesterday said Eastern Cape municipalities needed to take stock of the poor state of affairs and justify their existence.

“I have been informed that currently our province is rated number eight in the country on how it delivers services to its inhabitants,” he said at a local government indaba in East London.

“This poor state of affairs is due to huge backlogs on water, electricity, refuse removal, etc,” said Qoboshiyane.

“We must emerge from this indaba with concrete strategic plans that are implementable, achievable and measurable to turn this ugly picture around.”

He said the unpredictability of recent service delivery protests in one place and then another throughout the country called for political vigilance to identify organisational strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.

Credit to: The Sowetan and Times Live

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IEC misses 24m target, but happy

Wednesday, March 9, 2011 No Comments by Zelda

Over one million new potential voters have registered to vote in the May 18 local government elections.

The IEC missed its target of 24 million voters for the muncipal elections but they are happy with the 23.6 million voters on the role.

Releasing the final registration weekend results on Wednesday, Independent Electoral Commission chairperson (IEC), Dr Brigalia Bam, said they were satisfied with the numbers they had received during the final voter registration weekend.

The number of people on the voters roll stands at 23.6 million, with final verification expected to take place in the next few days, said Bam.

The IEC had wanted 24 million people on the roll for the upcoming local government elections, but Bam was satisfied with a 1.9% increase in the number of voters compared to other years.

“Over the two registration weekends a total of 2 731 967 persons registered or re-registered as voters, apart from numerous others who verified their details on the voters roll,” she said.

“There’s been a steady increase with regards to municipal elections. The number increased by 1.82% during the 2006 elections and 1.6% for the 2000/2002 local government elections.”

The provincial spread of new registrations for the two registration weekends indicated that most occurred in KwaZulu-Natal with 285 208, followed by Gauteng with 200 751 and the Eastern Cape 157 581.

Bam said women represented just over 53 percent of total registration activity, while men made up 47 percent.

As far as the new registrations go, about 80 percent was from young persons under the age of 30 years.

Currently, there are 164 political parties registered to contest the municipal elections, but the IEC said the number was increasing daily.

Credit to: BuaNews and Times Live

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Youth sceptical about voting

Wednesday, March 2, 2011 No Comments by Zelda

It has emerged that around 66 percent of South Africans aged between 18 and 19 will probably not vote in the upcoming local government elections.

South Africa has 2.1million 18 and 19-year-olds, with only 238,000 of those registered to vote.

Around 480,000 new voters registered during the registration weekend at the beginning of February.

The Institute for Policy Studies’ Aubrey Matshiqi said young people did not see the point of voting.

“They… are unable to see, in transactional terms, what the return is for voting,” he said.
People can still register at their local municipality.

Meanwhile, Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) officials were working to establish the exact number of new voters.

The IEC said that while over a million people visited its registration centres, only around 480,000 registered for the first time.

The up and coming weekend will give voters the final chance to register before the local government elections.

Credit to: Eyewitness News

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High turnout at voter registration

Monday, February 7, 2011 No Comments by Zelda

According to some news reports it was the highest turnout for voter registration over the weekend and a significant number of the registrations were done by young people.

The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) on Monday said despite a slow voter registration weekend, it was satisfied that over a million South Africans registered to vote in the local government polls.

“According to statistics about 479,000 people registered for the first time and 649,000 re-registered,” said the IEC’s Pansy Tlakula.

Meanwhile, Gauteng ANC said it will be assessing the figures from this past weekend’s voter registration drive before deciding whether more needs to be done to increase turnout.

IEC chairperson Brigalia Bam said during Saturday and up until Sunday morning, the IEC’s website had more than 97 000 visits and that the IEC received 197 000 SMSes from people checking whether they were registered to vote.

A further 13 000 registration status enquiries were made to the IEC’s tollfree line.

Floods continued to affect voter registration, with 13 voting stations forced to close in the Northern Cape and another three closed in the northern areas of the Western Cape.

Bam praised IEC staff, including a number in remote Eastern Cape areas who were forced to sleep at a voting station after roads became impassable.

She again urged all South Africans of voting age to check their voter registration status.

It was a message that was echoed by Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille when she visited Mamelodi, in Pretoria, on Sunday morning.

Zille urged DA supporters to be strong and to exercise their right to vote.

Credit to: Eyewitness News, News 24 and Sapa

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Voter turn-out: at least 40%, says IEC

Monday, January 17, 2011 No Comments by Zelda

The Independent Electoral Commission is hoping a hip campaign and good weather will encourage local voters to participate in municipal elections which are due before the winter sets in.

IEC chief executive Pansy Tlakula said at the launch of the “Love Your South Africa” local government election campaign in Midrand that the commission expected to draw 1.5 million new voters.

She told the Sunday Times that though the catchy campaign was predominantly aimed at attracting the country’s youth through slang phrases such as “Love your hood”, “Ek smaak my dorp” and “Loxionis lekker”, the IEC also had a responsibility to entrench a sense of patriotism among citizens, which the campaign seeks to do. Loxion is a slang term for a township.

“If you look at our voters’ roll, most of the middle-aged people are registered, but we are targeting young people and trying to add in that sense of patriotism that peaked last year during the World Cup, so we thought we should take it from there and continue to inspire South Africans to be patriotic by not only participating in sporting events but also extend it by participating in the electoral process,” Tlakula said.

“We wanted a fresh campaign, inspirational, out of the box and unusual. We have campaigns that we did in the past, but we wanted something quite different and catchy,” she added.

Though she would not say when the IEC hoped to hold the election to ensure a maximum turnout, Tlakula said bad weather had prevented the anticipated 55% turnout in the March 2006 election.

However, she committed the IEC to securing a “bare minimum of a 40% voter turnout” on Election Day.

“The only tricky part with the local government elections is that, depending on when the election date will be, you may find that students at tertiary level registered last year for the national election and that a sizeable number of them have completed their studies and they are no longer where they registered in 2009.

“We need to re-target those people as well to make sure that they are registered,” Tlakula said.

Drawing from lessons learned from the last election in 2006, the IEC boss said the commission would put special emphasis on the training of its 190 000 officials, who would work during election day on “map-reading” in order to ensure the accurate distribution of ballots.

With new voting districts created to enhance accessibility to voters, the IEC has increased the number of voting stations by 6%, from 19726 to 20868.

Credit to: Times Live

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IEC plans to add 1.5m new voters

Thursday, January 13, 2011 No Comments by Zelda

The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) yesterday launched preparations for this year’s local elections by promising an efficient campaign — with a plan to add 1,5- million new voters in the third local elections since 1994.

The elections will provide a test for SA’s one-party-dominant democracy, and could be an indication of whether or not it can grow into a two-party system.

The Cape provinces are expected to be fiercely contested, with the African National Congress and Democratic Alliance squaring up for control of strategic municipalities.

The IEC — with a budget of R1bn for the election year — has set a target of 1.5m new voters, mainly young, first-time voters, to add to the more than 23m registered on the voters roll, IEC chief electoral officer Pansy Tlakula said yesterday.

A voter registration drive would be held on February 5-6 in the country’s 20868 voting districts. Another voter registration weekend could be held if there was a demand.

Tlakula said all the voting districts would have their stations open for registration from 8am to 5pm, with more than 60000 registration officials in attendance.

The IEC will recruit 196000 staff members for Election Day.

The date of the elections has not been set, but the polls have to be held no later than 90 days after March 1, the date the current government term expires.

So far, 26 new political parties have registered since the 2009 provincial and national elections, in which there were 127 parties, and the figure could increase as small parties register to contest for power in particular regions.

Two new metropolitan municipalities — Buffalo City in East London and Mangaung in Bloemfontein — will join the present six metros.

This election will see the introduction of special votes, which have been used previously in national and provincial elections, for people with special needs to vote on a particular day.

The elderly and disabled will be visited at home by poll officials.

Credit to: Business Day

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New metros: Only civil servants will benefit

Bloem and E.London only metros after 2011 elections

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Bloem and E.London only metros after 2011 elections

Friday, December 10, 2010 No Comments by Zelda

The Municipal Demarcation Board yesterday defended its decision to recommend to the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) that Mangaung (Bloemfontein) become a metropolitan area, following an attack by Free State Premier Ace Magashule.

Magashule criticised the board three months after the deadline for submitting municipal borders to the IEC. He raised concerns at the recent African National Congress (ANC) summit on local government about the political power and influence metro leaders enjoy.

Addressing a media briefing yesterday, the board’s chairman Landiwe Mahlangu said they were “taken aback” by his criticism.

“The board had numerous engagements with the provinces, including the Free State, as part of the ward delimitation process,” Mahlangu said.

“At no stage of our engagement with stakeholders, including the Mangaung Municipality’s events as part of its preparations to assume the metro status — at which the premier was present — did he show any hint that he harboured such strong views about the role and function of the board.”

Mahlangu said the board had not been officially approached to explore the possibility of reducing any number of municipalities.

As a result, next year’s local government elections would be based on the existing 284 municipalities.

The board recommended changes to 4277 wards in SA.

Mahlangu urged voters to check in which ward they had to vote. Some wards have been reduced or expanded to accommodate the movement of voters since the previous local government election.

“We have tried to keep the wards unchanged in most areas. However, the laws of this country demand that we make an assessment every five years and ensure that there is a balance between the ratios of voters and the number of councillors in a municipality,” Mahlangu said.

Briefing reporters Thursday in Pretoria, Mahlangu said Buffalo City in East London will also be re-categorized as a metropolitan.

“After carefully considering the economic activity and integrated development planning, we came to a conclusion that Buffalo City and Mangaung should become metropolitan municipalities with effect after next year’s local government elections,” he said.

Metropolitan municipalities execute all the functions of local government for a city or conurbation. This is in contrast to areas which are primarily rural, where the local government is divided into district municipalities and local municipalities.

Mangaung and Buffalo City will increase the number of metropolitan municipalities from six to eight. The current metros are City of Johannesburg, Tshwane, Ekurhuleni, Cape Town, eThekwini and Nelson Mandela Bay.

Mahlangu said that while there is a talk of doing away with economically weak municipalities, the 2011 local government elections will be based on the existing 4 277 wards.

“Next year’s elections will be based on the existent boundaries and that can’t be changed,” he said.

In September this year, Mahlangu presented the Independent Electoral Commission with the final list of ward boundaries.

Credit to: Business Day and BuaNews

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