By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The government will officially gazette October 27 as local government election day, but this does not mean this is when voting will take place.
On Tuesday, cooperative governance and traditional affairs minister (Cogta) Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said the government was gazetting the date to meet statutory obligations.
Through officially gazetting the date, the minister said, it would “enable the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) to go ahead and file papers in the Constitutional Court to postpone an election that has been proclaimed”.
She said her department was “in no way seeking to contradict” former Deputy Chief Justice Dikgang Moseneke’s report – which recommended the municipal polls be postponed to no later than February next year – but “merely fulfilling” her office’s constitutional obligations.
“In balancing the need to secure livelihoods and our democratic obligations, we are in agreement with the outcomes of the Moseneke inquiry,” said Dlamini-Zuma.
She also said the government was in support of the IEC approaching, “with deliberate speed, a court of competent jurisdiction to seek a just and equitable order to defer the local government elections to not later than the month of February 2022”.
The minister revealed that the legal counsel she received had, among other things, also considered whether it should be the IEC or Dlamini-Zuma who approaches the Constitutional Court for the postponement of the elections and “what role the minister should play in the litigation if the IEC approached the Constitutional Court – namely, whether she should be a co-applicant or be a party that assists by offering information, expertise, or insight that has a bearing on the case”.
According to Dlamini-Zuma, it was the legal opinion’s conclusion that “by resolving to adopt Moseneke’s report, the IEC has, by implication, concluded that elections held in October 2021 will not be free and fair and has resolved to follow the recommendations of the report”.
She added that there was a more pressing imperative for both the IEC and her department, which was “to protect the rights of all persons to life, bodily and psychological integrity, as well as access to healthcare services, all of which rights may be jeopardised if elections continue as initially planned”.