Final party and ward candidate lists for the 2011 elections

April 12 2011

The Electoral Commission (IEC) announced today that the candidate lists for the municipal elections on 18 May 2011 have been finalised. This is the outcome of the nomination process where political parties and independent candidates -

• Submitted their nominations before 17:00 on 25 March
• Were advised by the Electoral Commission (IEC) of shortcomings where identity documents were not submitted or where acceptance of nomination forms by candidates were still outstanding; and
• had until 17:00 on 8 April to rectify these shortcomings

The Chief Electoral Officer, Adv Pansy Tlakula, said that the nomination process have been complicated to some extent by some intra-party disputes which resulted in a number of last minute court applications with the last judgement only being passed within the last hour before the closure of nominations.

There are 121 parties that will be contesting the elections as opposed to 97 parties in 2006 and 79 in 2001. The number of candidates is 53596 compared to 45179 in 2006 and 30477 in 2001. Of the 53596 candidates 29570 are party ward candidates and 23278 are party proportional list candidates.

The number of independent ward candidates also increased from 667 in 2006 to 748 in 2011. The increases in nominations are an indication of a broadening in electoral participation at local level and is very encouraging as for as the entrenchment of democratic processes are concerned.

There are only two (2) wards country wide, namely one each in the Great Kei (Komga) and Lukhanji (Queenstown) municipalities that are uncontested, whilst 11 wards were uncontested in 2006.

"There is a slight improvement in the gender distribution of candidates with the percentage of women candidates having increased from 35% in 2006 to 37% in 2011. This remains a disappointing outcome," said Adv Tlakula.

There are unfortunately a larger number of nominations which did not meet requirements on this occasion than in 2006 when 932 candidates were disqualified. The number of nominations that did not meet the set legal requirements is 2313 for one or more of the following reasons:

Not registered as voters

• Not registered in the municipality for which nominated
• Copy of ID not submitted
• Acceptance of nomination not submitted
• Independent - list of signatures not submitted
• Independent - Nominators not a registered voter
• Independent - Nominator not on the voters roll for the municipality for which nomination is made
• Deposit not paid

Apart from these non-compliance issues a number of nominations were not accepted as it was attempted to submit them after the close of nominations or they were presented at a location other than the municipality which was being contested. Some of these cases are the matter of court applications and appeals and whilst the list of candidates have already been published it is therefore possible that once matters have been finally resolved amendment notices might have to be issued.

Only one party, the African National Congress, will be contesting all 278 municipal elections. The Democratic Alliance will be contesting 272 municipalities and the Congress of the People 220. The ward ballot papers with the most candidates are wards 24 (Bishop Lavis) and 79 (Beacon Value / Eastridge) in Cape Town with 24 candidates each. The party proportional list ballot paper in Cape Town with 32 parties is also the ballot paper with the most contesting parties.

The order of parties on the proportional list ballot papers will be determined on 13 April at an occasion where political parties well also sign a pledge to honour and promote the Code of Conduct for political parties. Printer proofs of ballot papers will shortly thereafter be submitted to municipal party liaison committee's for sign off by ward candidates and political parties. With the elections only 37 days away it is a mammoth logistical undertaking to print the ballot papers for the 4275 contested wards and the 460 proportional ballot papers for local and district councils.

The next milestone on the election timetable will be Friday 15 April 2011 when voters can start submitting applications for special votes because they either cannot visit their voting stations on voting day or are infirm or disabled. The IEC will shortly make full details available as far as the subject is concerned.

Full details of candidate lists will be published on the IEC website shortly as well as in the Government Gazette.

Statement issued by the IEC, April 12 2011

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