The Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) is almost two years ahead in terms of its planning of the 2024 general elections, Unisa election observer member advocate Sipho Mantuli said.
Mantuli said the country’s electoral body was nothing like other African countries, to a point where they assist them.
“If there is rigging in the elections, there will be mechanisms and ways and avenues to complain and to log complaints to. If rigging ever happens, it would be picked up because we have party agents, internationals, and local observers,” he added.
Mantuli was on Tuesday addressing a question of some political parties who raised their concerns of the upcoming elections being rigged and stolen by the ANC.
He said there would no chance of any political party being able to steal or rig the elections as there would be party agents at the polling stations during voting.
“Remember, there would also be observers at the voting stations, but they are not stationed like party agents who would sit at the voting station until results have been announced, so it is highly unlikely that rigging would happen.”
Mantuli also touched on the significance of this year’s elections, especially for first-time voters. He said just like the 1994 elections, the 2024 elections were equally important for young people, who would for the first time experience the moment of voting.
Late last year, former statistician-general Pali Lehohla had called for the elections to be postponed indefinitely due to what he termed a “range of reversal of the country’s democratic gains”.
Lehohla said at the time that the country should focus on holding wide-ranging talks involving all stakeholders, including communities, civic groups, politicians, businesses, and religious organisations to determine the kind of a country they wanted to build.
The former statistician-general said the country’s political parties were not focusing on programmes that sought to correct the pigsty situation the country found itself in.
However, Mantuli said there was no justifiable reason for the country to postpone the elections as the voter registration was continuing until such time as the president pronounced the election date.
He said postponing the elections was not an overnight thing and that the matter needed to go through Parliament.
“You don’t just postpone elections over a press briefing. There must be a bill that postpone the elections that would allow Home Affairs and IEC to go back on their systems in terms of election processing,” said the Unisa election observer.
President Cyril Ramaphosa is expected to announce the election date during his State of the Nation Address on Thursday.
Various political parties have been pressuring him to issue an election date since late last year.
The Star
Sipho Jack