No basis for postponing municipal elections, says AfriForum
17 August 2021
The civil rights organisation AfriForum says there is no judicial or factual grounds to postpone the municipal elections. This forms part of AfriForum’s application to the Constitutional Court to be allowed as a Friend of the Court (amicus curiae). This application will be heard virtually by the Constitutional Court on Friday, 20 August.
According to Morné Mostert, Manager of Local Government Affairs at AfriForum, the Constitution and the Local Government Act: Municipal Structures are in agreement that the terms of municipal councils are not allowed to continue longer than five years. “The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) therefore have to hold an election within 90 days of the conclusion of the five-year term. It seems as if the Constitution’s terms on this are peremptory, and it allows for little (if any) room for a court to grant a delay of elections after 1 November 2021.
According to him, COVID-19 models indicate that the current date for the election, 27 October, will fall in a safe period between the two waves of the virus. “Although there will have to be strict protocols in place everywhere during the elections, the IEC had already indicated that they would be ready to safely run the elections on 27 October at 23 000 voting stations – even before former deputy chief justice Dikgang Moseneke’s recommendation that the election had to be postponed. The election can therefore continue since any future dates also have the potential to be problematic due to the pandemic.”
Mostert believes citizens should be given the opportunity to change who represent them on municipal councils.