Durban - The Electoral Commission of South Africa has expressed concern that political parties are failing to nominate the type of candidates “the country deserves” for the local government elections.
IEC provincial head Mawethu Mosery told a group of church leaders in Durban on Tuesday that the current crop of candidates did not have the quality to provide services.
“With all the internal party challenges, the quality of the candidates is not the best that we can get as the country, because it is really about who has influence in the party’s nomination process and not really who is the best.
“You can’t necessarily say the quality is not good, but it may not be the best that we deserve,” he said.
Mosery was addressing members of the Diakonia Council of Churches about the importance of providing voter education before the local government elections.
He said the candidate quality was questionable across all political parties.
The solution would be to debate, discuss and hold dialogue on the nomination process of the parties.
“That element of debate, discussion should take place not only when there is an election, but even beyond elections. It is because the so-called issues of accountability, of elected representatives, come to the fore.
“But also the excitement of voters coming up to vote depends on who the candidate is, and the qualities of that candidate.”
The ANC selected its candidates through branch meetings where party members nominated candidates, who were later approved or disapproved by community members in the ward. This had, however, been problematic this year in many areas in the province, with people unhappy with the process engaging in violent protests and destroying property.
The DA, on the other hand, invited party members to apply to be candidates and then interviewed them. This process had unfolded relatively peacefully.
Mosery also raised concerns about the dwindling number of voters he expected to turn out.
“From our 5.4 million registered voters we are expecting between 2.8 million to 3 million to vote, which is not a good number,” he said.
Concerned about possible violence after the IEC released its own candidate list on June 27, Mosery called on the church leaders to go out to the communities to provide voter education so as to try to bring about a return of peace.
Violence monitor Mary de Haas gave the church leaders a long background of political violence in the province. She said the local government elections were not about ensuring democracy, but it was about making money for the elected councillors.
“My concern is not only these elections. Please get out there and monitor. We are sitting with serious threats to democracy. The face of democracy is local government. We have to meet and have serious dialogue about democracy.”
The Mercury