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IFP calls for elections to be postponed to May 2022

  • Election officials seal ballot boxes at the end of voting in South Africa's parliamentary and provincial elections at a polling station in Johannesburg, South Africa, May 8,2019.
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Inkatha Freedom Party leader Velenkosini Hlabisa says while his party is ready to go the elections, he believes it is better to err on the side of caution and hold the elections in May next year.

He was addressing the Moseneke Inquiry into the feasibility of holding the local government elections during the pandemic.

The elections are scheduled for October 27. Hlabisa says for parties like his, whose core constituency is the disadvantaged and rural, it will be difficult and costly to hold online meetings and gatherings for the purposes of candidate selection.

He says efforts to reach the electorate to campaign will also be severely constrained during the pandemic.

“The reality is that for us to reach our electorate we will be using party leaders and candidates and volunteers these party volunteers are mostly young people who will be moving from one place to another to get the message to the electorate given the limitations that the state of disaster places on these actions in the various lockdown levels we will not be able to freely and fairly campaign.”
ICASA to consult broadcasters on PEBs
Communications authority (ICASA) has said that it will try to consult with other commercial and community broadcasters to carry Public Election Broadcasts should the elections proceed in October.
The regulator was making its oral submission at the Moseneke Inquiry.  A number of political parties have mentioned in their submissions that they will need assistance in putting out their election messages during the pandemic.
Currently, it is just the SABC that is required to carry the PEBs on an equitable or proportional basis at no cost to the parties.
“To broaden the pool of the pie that will be carrying PEBs because if we try to squeeze an increased number of PEBs which now are more on the same SABC we may have issues and we won’t be surprised if the SABC approaches a court of law to try and challenge what ICASA is trying to impose on them” says chairperson of ICASA, Keabetswe Modimoeng.

Holomisa has told the Moseneke Inquiry that political parties under the current national disaster regulations will be constrained in campaigning and these activities are conducive to spreading the coronavirus.

Holomisa says that the implications of how many people turn up for the October 27 poll must be considered.

“We must consider the possible impact on the result and democracy if the turnout is low and what it would mean for free and elections the conundrum however is this if voter turnout is good election day may turn out to be the mother of super spreader events especially in the voters for the UDM this is the single most worrying factor,” he says.
Pan Africanist Congress of Azania (PAC) president Narius Moloto says the current circumstances of COVID-19 are likely to privilege larger, better-resourced parties. Moloto also proposed that the polls take place in March.
“They can only be favourable to those while they also a political party they may also be in government in one form or another because when they change the form they are able to communicate to the population or the people and based on the mandate that is political and that creates an imbalance those parties that are not necessarily in there will not necessarily be heard,” he says.
The Patriotic Alliance and Al Jama-ah have called for the elections to proceed in October as planned.

Live proceedings in the video below:

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