Effective, efficient and transparent electoral management, which impacts on electoral credibility, is integral to establishing and sustaining a healthy and vibrant democracy.
For the majority of citizens, it is the only means of participating in the governance of their country. This responsibility is usually entrusted to an electoral management body.
In South Africa, the Electoral Commission, known as the IEC, carries the task of administering and ensuring credible, free and fair elections.
In 1994, the management of elections proceeded largely by way of ad hoc decision-making, and trial and error on the part of the IEC. This was in part due to the lack of a comprehensive national voters’ roll and other logistical systems.
This was accompanied by violent tensions and anxieties surrounding Election Day. Over the past two decades, the IEC has had to deal with varying challenges.
Provisionally formed in 1994 and permanently established in 1998, the IEC has played a critical role in securing democracy in post-apartheid South Africa.
Although an independent body, it is accountable to the National Assembly. While the 1994 election was widely praised as being a success, it also served to illuminate the electoral management challenges that needed to be addressed.
Preparations for the 1999 elections thus included, among others, the establishment of a common voter’s roll, and the introduction of an electoral code of conduct.
The Code of Conduct regulates party behaviour during the election period with the aim of reducing violence and intimidation, and to ensure free and fair elections.
The number of election related complaints submitted to the IEC also substantially fell from over three thousand in 1994, to just over a thousand
Compared to the 1994 poll, the incidence of violence was considerably reduced in the 1999 elections.
The number of election related complaints submitted to the IEC also substantially fell from over three thousand in 1994, to just over a thousand.
The past decade saw a plethora of new political parties coming to the fore.
The Commission had to work within distinct and shifting challenges of the electoral context. This indicated a vibrant democracy and the maturity of the country, beyond a new dispensation.
A new guard has recently taken over the helm again. Pansy Tlakula had been a member of the Commission for many years.
The set of challenges that she has to face have fundamentally changed. On the eve of the 20th anniversary celebrations, Tlakula became embroiled in a personal scandal.
She was accused of being complicit in an alleged corrupt deal about the headquarters of the commission. The report indicated that the procurement process was not fair, transparent and cost-effective.
Tlakula defend herself, insisting that, since she had not been involved in, or been found guilty of any criminal or corrupt activity, any reporting to that effect was possibly meant to discredit her.
Political parties soon entered the fray.
Economic Freedom Fighters Dali Mpofu said, “ We are calling for her to be suspended. She might well be innocent as she claims but the point is that democracy and elections are more important than an individual.”
“It does raise an issue whether the elections can be viewed as free and fair when she is implicated in complicity with leading members of the ruling party. I would have thought that in order to protect the election system and process, she would ask to be recused temporarly to allow for somebody that’s not been tarnished to run the process,” said Congress of the people president Mosiuoa Lekota.
The ruling party differs, citing that the report only identified errors not necessarily corruption.
African National Congress General Secretary Gwede mantashe said, “The IEC must invoke its internal processes. My biggest worry is to dent the image of the IEC when we are 49 days to elections. The timing is terrible. We need to run the election machinery and not cast aspersion on the IEC.”
– By Yolisa Njamela
