Pretoria – The Electoral Institute for Sustainable Democracy in Africa (EISA) says the 2016 Local Government Elections were conducted in a transparent, fair and credible manner, which is in line with the constitutional and legal framework of elections.
EISA deployed a regional election observation mission (EOM) to observe and monitor the 2016 Local Government Elections in South Africa following an invitation by the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC).
Addressing the media at the Results Operations Centre (ROC) in Pretoria on Thursday, EISA Executive Director Denis Kadima said the assessment of the elections was premised on the constitutional and legal framework governing elections in South Africa as well as international, continental and sub-regional norms, principles and standards on democratic elections as stipulated in the Declaration of Principles for International Election Observation, the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance and the Principles for Election Management, Monitoring and Observation (PEMMO).
“The 2016 elections were deemed to be the most competitive with the highest number of candidates since the introduction of multiparty democracy in 1994 as South Africa continues to consolidate its democracy.
“They were also the first Local Government Elections in which the born-free generation excised their democratic choice of leaders in local governance,” Kadima said.
Kadima said the political environment preceding the polls was relatively heightened by activities which characterised pluralism and contestations regarding policy and delivery of public services to the citizens.
He said although they rated the elections as fair and transparent, he was concerned that a number of voters seemed to be lacking adequate information regarding the requirements for special voting.
“We noted that some voters showed up to vote without having gone through the application process to obtain approval for enlisting in special voting process as provided for in the election procedures.
“In other cases, there were notable technical challenges, where some voters had applied for enlisting for special voting via SMS service but did not receive a confirmation by the IEC and in other instances where the voter received confirmation for enlisting but their names did not feature on the system,” he said.
Kadima said EISA was pleased that most of the stations opened on time at 7am, as per the procedure.
“The EISA mission was pleased to note that the large majority of voting stations were accessible to all categories of voters including those living with physical infirmity.”
He commended the timely delivery of election materials, which were available in adequate quantity at 95.1 percent of voting stations visited by the EISA team.
The team also noted that the voting process was carried out according to set procedures.
EISA also noted that most voting stations closed on time at 7pm.
With regard to election security, EISA noted that polling stations were generally peaceful.
EISA recommendations
Kadima said EISA will recommend to Parliament to consider establishing a regulatory framework for election campaign financing and to consider legal reforms to governing party funding to include accountability of private sources of funding.
Kadima said EISA will recommend that the IEC consider reviewing the number of special votes days to consider conducting the process in one day. It will also recommend undertaking measures to strengthen the mechanism of application for special votes, the training of voting staff and measures to improve the accuracy of the voters’ roll in order to prevent the disenfranchisement of voters.
To the political parties and candidates, EISA will recommend that they consider reviewing procedures to enhance internal democracy.
To law enforcement agencies, EISA will recommend that they spare no efforts to timely arrest the instigators and executors of alleged political assassinations in order to discourage this undemocratic practice. – SAnews.gov.za
