THE upcoming local government elections are at risk unless the Constitutional Court steps in, the Electoral Commission of SA (IEC) says.
In an affidavit filed in the Constitutional Court on Tuesday, the IEC said if the recent judgment of the Electoral Court on the disputed Tlokwe by-elections were allowed to stand, it would mean 65% of all voters registered in the country would not be able to vote.
"Unless some part of the relief that the IEC now seeks is granted, the effect ... will be to prevent local government elections taking place across the country by August 16," the commission said.
In February, the Electoral Court ordered the IEC to postpone by-elections in some of Tlokwe’s wards, saying the commission had to provide candidates with a voters’ roll, which included the addresses of all voters on it, where such addresses were available.
The decision was based on a Constitutional Court judgment in November last year.
But the IEC’s chief electoral officer, Mosotho Moepya, said the Electoral Court "erred" in how it interpreted the Constitutional Court’s judgment. He said to do what the court required would "simply be impossible" to achieve this year and would mean 16.2-million people would not be able to vote. The IEC thought it would take until at least 2019 to collect the addresses of all registered voters, Mr Moepya said.
He said the Constitutional Court’s judgment did not, as the Electoral Court’s judgment seemed to suggest, require the IEC to "trawl through each and every voter who has historically been registered without an address".
© BDlive 2015
Picture: REUTERS/MIKE HUTCHINGS
THE upcoming local government elections are at risk unless the Constitutional Court steps in, the Electoral Commission of SA (IEC) says.
In an affidavit filed in the Constitutional Court on Tuesday, the IEC said if the recent judgment of the Electoral Court on the disputed Tlokwe by-elections were allowed to stand, it would mean 65% of all voters registered in the country would not be able to vote.
"Unless some part of the relief that the IEC now seeks is granted, the effect ... will be to prevent local government elections taking place across the country by August 16," the commission said.
In February, the Electoral Court ordered the IEC to postpone by-elections in some of Tlokwe’s wards, saying the commission had to provide candidates with a voters’ roll, which included the addresses of all voters on it, where such addresses were available.
The decision was based on a Constitutional Court judgment in November last year.
But the IEC’s chief electoral officer, Mosotho Moepya, said the Electoral Court "erred" in how it interpreted the Constitutional Court’s judgment. He said to do what the court required would "simply be impossible" to achieve this year and would mean 16.2-million people would not be able to vote. The IEC thought it would take until at least 2019 to collect the addresses of all registered voters, Mr Moepya said.
He said the Constitutional Court’s judgment did not, as the Electoral Court’s judgment seemed to suggest, require the IEC to "trawl through each and every voter who has historically been registered without an address".
© BDlive 2015
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