Siyavuya Mzantsi
THE Western Cape has the highest number of political parties in the country registered to contest this year’s municipal elections, the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) announced yesterday.
IEC provincial commissioner Courtney Sampson said the Western Cape has 66 political parties, while Limpopo had a total of 33 political parties, making it the province with the second highest number of parties registered.
A total of 402 wards will be contested in the Western Cape on August 3.
Sampson was addressing political party representatives yesterday at the launch of the Municipal Election 2016, where there was a signing of the Electoral Code of Conduct by contesting political parties in the Western Cape.
The launch included a public pledge by representatives of political parties.
Reading from the pledge, the political representatives said they accepted that elections required an environment of free political activity and where political parties were able to canvass support without fear or hindrance.
The IEC also expressed deep concern about threats to prevent its staff from opening voting stations on August 3, saying that it was working closely with law enforcement agencies.
Electoral matters manager Derrick Marco said the commission placed its focus on voting education and the process of counting of the votes.
“I want to highlight the risks that we are concerned about. We do not have control over dissatisfied party members that can be a threat to voting stations.
“We do not have control over people (who) were not successful candidates when they are on a party list, the PR list or whether they are ward candidates. We have no control over those levels of dissatisfaction,” he said.
IEC vice-chairperson Terry Tselane has urged political parties to be “circumspect” of about things they said aboutregarding the commission.
“We are not saying you should criticise the commission. Criticise the commission when the commission is wrong.
“Help us to refine our system because it’s through your input and criticism that we are able to deal with the problem.”
He said there was no election that was error-free. “It is happening all over the world. There are also procedural errors.
"They must be dealt with by the organisation that is running the elections decisively to make sure those errors do not occur.”