local government elections


All you need to know about the elections

Tuesday, May 17, 2011 No Comments by Zelda

More than 23 million registered voters will have the opportunity on Wednesday to elect their municipal councillors in South Africa’s fourth democratic municipal elections.

Unlike in previous municipal elections, every voter in South Africa will be able to vote for one of 4 277 ward councillors to represent them in their municipality.

The ward councillors can be either a member of a political party, or an independent.

A further 458 councillors will be appointed though a proportional representation vote in each municipality. This excludes district council councillors.

In terms of this vote, if a party receives 70% support, it will be allowed to appoint 70% of the proportional representation councillors in a municipality.

Half the councillors in a municipality are ward councillors directly elected. The other half are proportional representation councillors appointed in terms of candidate lists prepared by political parties.

Voters living in one of South Africa’s eight metropolitan councils will receive a yellow ballot paper to vote for a party, and a white ballot paper to vote for a ward councillor of their choice.

In South Africa’s 226 non-metropolitan local councils, voters will also receive a third green ballot paper.

This is to vote for a party, which will through its candidate list appoint a percentage of councillors who will represent them in 44 district councils that will be responsible for providing bulk services to their municipalities.

Voting will take place at 20 868 voting stations throughout the country.

Unlike in the previous national election in 2009, people can only vote at the station where they registered.

An average of 1 200 voters is registered at each voting station. In densely populated urban areas however as many as 8 500 people are registered at a single station.

A total of 121 political parties and a record number of 748 independent candidates will take part in this election. The high number of independent candidates is largely due to discontent with candidates proposed by the ANC.

For the first time ever, only two wards in South Africa will be unopposed. The ANC candidates will have no opponents in Komga and Queenstown.

In Cape Town, which is currently controlled by the DA, a record number of 32 parties will take part in the polls.

A total of 53 596 candidates have been proposed by various political parties to contest this election.

Voting will start at 07:00 and booths will close at 19:00. Ballots will be counted at the voting stations. The results will then be communicated to the Independent Electoral Commission’s centre in Pretoria.

The first results in the elections are expected before midnight on Wednesday evening. Final results should be out by not later than Friday morning.

Because of changes to the Electoral Act, an Electoral Court will for the first time have the right to declare an election null and void as a result of objections and order a new election in an area before May 31.

The average turnout for municipal elections since 1994 has always been below 50%. In national elections by contrast more than 80% is not unusual.

Analysts say more than 50% turnout would be exceptional and could result in changes in the country’s political landscape.

After this election, Buffalo City or East London and Mangaung, in which Bloemfontein falls, will become metropolitan councils, bringing the total number of metropolitan councils in South Africa up to eight.

This will cause the number of district councils to drop to 44.

The number of non-metropolitan councils will be reduced to 226, from the previous 237.

The ANC in 2006 received 64.8% of the vote, the DA 16%, the IFP 7.6% and a number of smaller parties the rest.

Credit to: Sapa and News24

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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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Tshwane to become largest metro

Tuesday, May 3, 2011 No Comments by Zelda

The City of Tshwane will become the largest metropolitan municipality in the country after the May 18 local government elections when it incorporates the Metsweding District Municipality.

This will also make it the third largest city in the world in terms of land mass, after New York and Yokohama in Tokyo. The reconfigured Tshwane will also move from the current five regions and 76 wards to seven regions and 105 wards.

But residents in the newly configured Tshwane Metro Council will also have to dig deeper into their pockets for municipal services.

The municipality will, on July 1, introduce new tariffs, which will see households in the current Tshwane pay an average increase of 13.8 percent for municipal services, while those in Kungwini (Bronkhorstspruit and surrounding areas) will pay an average 1.2 percent, and Nokeng tsa Taemane (Rayton and Cullinan areas) an average 17.8 percent more on their municipal accounts.

Electricity will go up by 19.8 percent for residential households, water and sanitation by eight percent, property rates by eight percent and waste removal by 17 percent.

Presenting his budget speech and medium-term revenue and expenditure framework for the 2011/2012, 2012/13 and 2013/14 financial years last Thursday, executive mayor Kgosientso Ramokgopa said one of the major talking points that had attracted public attention since the council presented the draft budget had been the issue of tariffs.

“Some have chosen to concentrate on one side of the argument while deliberately choosing to ignore the whole picture, namely the tariff regime.

“Our approach to the tariff regime is a bold one; one that might not be popular with certain sections of our city, but which, when everything logical and rational is considered, is necessary and unavoidable,” said Ramokgopa.

He said the expanded municipality was faced with the challenge of three different tariff structures for property rates, electricity, refuse removal, water and sanitation.

To ensure the financial sustainability of the municipality and greater compliance with the Municipal Property Rates Act of 2004, a single tariff had been recommended for the new municipality.

“We regard a single tariff structure as essential. It is our considered view that we are creating one city and one system.

“If we fail to do that, it may lead to a fractured system and almost the same experience that we had in 2000, when the current City of Tshwane was founded,” he said.

Ramokgopa said the total revenue budget over the medium term was R66.3 billion, constituted by R19.06 billion for 2011/12, R22.16 billion for 2012/2013 and R24.9 billion for 2013/14.

According to Ramokgopa, the operating expenditure for the medium term equated to R60.6 billion.

“This will be a tool to consolidate service delivery and accelerate job creation.”

Credit to: Pretoria News and BuaNews

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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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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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New metros: Only civil servants benefit

Thursday, January 13, 2011 No Comments by Zelda

The Buffalo City (East London) and Mangaung (Bloemfontein) municipalities will become metropolitan cities after the forthcoming local government elections, but this will not necessarily translate into improved service delivery, analysts say.

Probably only councillors and civil servants would benefit from the municipalities’ elevation in status, by receiving bigger salaries, said political analyst Stephen Friedman.

“I’m not aware of any benefits to citizens,” he said. “There will be no substantial difference. It will only affect the status of civil servants in pay terms.”

The manager of the local government unit at the Institute for Democracy in Southern Africa, Bongani Qwabe, shared Friedman’s opinion.

“Service-delivery expectations will be high. The scope of delivery will be huge and they will undertake huge projects. Systems will have to be jacked up. Revenue collection will have to improve,” Qwabe said.

“Instead of improved services, I foresee extra burdens for the two municipalities. Residents and the electorate should not raise their expectations because they will be disappointed,” he said.

Landiwe Mahlangu, chairman of the Municipal Demarcation Board, said the municipalities would become metros from the day of the elections.

When residents in these areas went to the polls, they would be voting for councillors who will run a metro.

Mahlangu said Buffalo City and Mangaung were being declared metros because they had the characteristics of a metro, such as rapid urbanisation, large movement of people and goods, multiple districts, industrial areas and development nodes.

“Buffalo City has some huge development nodes, and Bloemfontein has a huge movement of people, in the city itself and in Thaba Nchu.”

He said jobs could result from the move.

As metros, the two municipalities would have to deliver specified services. Whether they would be able to was “a different story”, Mahlangu said.

Mangaung and Buffalo City will join the ranks of the metropolitan municipalities of

Johannesburg, Tshwane, Ekurhuleni, Cape Town, Nelson Mandela Bay and eThekwini on Election Day.

Credit to: Times Live

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