By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
President Cyril Ramaphosa is expected to announce the date for the national elections by February 23, according to his spokesperson.
Ramaphosa will announce the date within 15 days of February 8, Vincent Magwenya told reporters on Wednesday in Cape Town.
Magwenya was briefing the media in Cape Town ahead of the State of the Nation Address.
The president is scheduled to deliver his annual state-of-the-nation address in parliament on Thursday. At least R6.5 million has been budgeted for this year’s Sona.
Magwenya said the President was recovering well from the flu and would be up to the task of delivering his address.
“Last night we were with him going through the draft [speech] until very late. By then he had improved significantly, “Magwenya said.
“There is no delay” in announcing the date, Magwenya said. “There was never an agreed timeline as to when he will announce the date”
The Independent Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) announced this week that it has registered a total of 27.4 million voters ahead of the elections.
This followed two successful registration weekends, which added new voters.
Sy Mamabolo, IEC CEO said they will now start to make preparations for the elections.
The IEC has more than 23,000 voting stations across the country, and more than 68,000 staff members who will be manning the stations.
The commission said there will be challenges in organising the ballot paper because there were more than 350 political parties and independent candidates.
In his address to the nation, Ramaphosa will reflect on the last 30 years of the country’s democracy under the ANC-led government as well as the work of the sixth administration over the past five years, Magwenya said.
With both Houses of Parliament, the National Assembly and the National Council of Provinces having passed the controversial National Health Insurance Bill, Ramaphosa has been largely expected to announce the signing of the bill into law during his speech on Thursday.
However, Magwenya shot down these expectations, saying the president was still consulting his legal team on the legislation.
“You will appreciate that the president has a constitutional obligation to satisfy himself that the process that the bill has gone through will stand scrutiny [and] that all the submissions that were made during the public participation process were carefully considered before the bill was passed.
“This is his constitutional duty and the legal team is hard at work, not only on the NHI Bill, and it’s important that the president satisfies himself that all those processes, prior to the signing of the bill, were conducted in the earnest manner that our Constitution envisages,” he said.
Ramaphosa is set to deliver his last Sona for the sixth administration at Cape Town City Hall at 7pm on Thursday, 8 February.
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Video Courtesy of GCIS.