Durban - Democratic South Africa’s sixth local government elections will take place on October 27 2021, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced on Wednesday night.
The elections which will see millions of South Africans elect official to run their cities and towns will be declared a public once promulgated by the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs.
“The Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs will follow the necessary legal process to proclaim the date and undertake other requirements,” a statement from the government said.
The announcement of a date for the local government elections come against a backdrop of calls for it be postponed over fears that it could become a Covid-19 super spreader event.
[Just in] President Cyril Ramaphosa has announced Wednesday, 27 October 2021, as the date on which local government elections will take place #LocalElections2021
— @SAgovnews (@SAgovnews) April 21, 2021
Both the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) and Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) have called for the local government elections to be postponed until after South Africa has beaten the coronavirus disease.
Last week, Ramaphosa dismissed those fears while campaigning for the ANC for a by-election in the Mpumalanga township near Durban.
"There are those who say that this year's elections must be postponed but as the ANC, we want the elections to take place now because we are ready," he told a mini-rally.
He said that while he understood that the country was in the middle of fighting the Covid-19 pandemic, life must not come to a standstill.
IOL