Congress of the People (COPE) leader Mosioua Lekota says he has been to the Electoral Commission (IEC), participating in the inquiry led by former Deputy Chief Justice Dikgang Moseneke on whether or not the country is ready to conduct local government elections (LGE) under the coronavirus period.
Lekota says, according to the Constitution of the country, every five years there must be local government elections and that can’t be ignored.
He adds that lack of service delivery at the municipality level leaves South Africans with no choice but to head to the polls for the much-needed change.
The COPE leader spoke to the media outside of the Constitutional Court, as the country marks a year since an order to Parliament that the country’s electoral system must be changed to allow independent candidates to participate in National and Provincial elections.
“Five years of this current government has passed. We must now go and give the people an opportunity to elect who they want, who is going to be capable of correcting the conditions under which they live in. I was personally part of the meeting of the IEC and I did say that we must go and vote.”
Election date
Meanwhile, answering questions in the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) on Thursday, President Cyril Ramaphosa appealed to South Africans to give the Electoral Commission and the Moseneke Inquiry time to determine whether the conditions are conducive for free and fair elections this year.
He said no other date has been determined for holding the elections other than October 27 which he announced earlier this year.
President Ramaphosa suggested that at this stage, there is no reason to believe that the date for local government elections would be shifted. -Additional reporting Zalene Merrington
In the video below the IEC launches the 2021 Municipal Elections:
