Commission decisions on objections to the nominations of candidates, section 30 of the Electoral Act, 1998

23 March 2009

Participating parties submitted their lists of candidates by 2 March. These lists and their accompanying documents were made available for public inspection and were also published as an insert in newspapers.

Everybody was then afforded the opportunity to object to the nomination of any candidate on any one of these lists on the following grounds set out in section 30(1) of the Electoral Act:

(a) The candidate is not qualified to stand in the election
(b) There was no acceptance of nominations by the candidate
(c) There was no undertaking by the candidate that the candidate is bound by the Electoral Code of Conduct.

Objections had to be in by 17h00 on 18 March 2009.

A number of objections were received from the Chief Electoral Officer while members of the public and a couple of political parties also lodged objections. The Chief Electoral Officers' objections were all within the ambit of the grounds mentioned in section 30(1) while most of the objections received from members of the public were not.

All the relevant documentation having been studied before hand by the individual members of the commission, the commission met yesterday to decide the objections. Both the objectors and the parties, whose candidates were objected to, are being notified today of the commission's decisions.

The vast majority of objections that succeeded were those under section 30(1)(b) and (c). In those cases the commission is allowing parties a further opportunity to rectify this omission by not later than Wednesday, 25 March 2009.

The commission decided to issue this statement because of the many media enquiries we received. The media interest focussed mostly on the objection to the candidature of Mrs Winnie Mandela. The decision of the commission on that objection was recorded as follows:

"The grounds for the objection are that the candidate is not qualified to stand in the election [section 30(1)(a) of the Electoral Act, 1998].

"There being no factual disputes, the matter has to be decided on the interpretation of the law.

"The commission finds that the candidate is not disqualified from standing as a candidate in the election of 22 April 2009.

"The objection is accordingly dismissed."

The Electoral Act provides that any objector, or the party who nominated a candidate, may appeal against a decision of the commission to the Electoral Court by not later than the date stated in the election timetable, i.e. 26 March 2009.

Statement issued by the Independent Electoral Commission March 23 2009

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