Court challenges to Electoral Act 'could delay elections'
Former deputy chairperson of the Independent Electoral Commission Terry Tselane has warned that the pending court challenges against the recently signed Electoral Act could delay the 2024 general elections.
The One South Africa Movement filed papers at the Constitutional Court on Friday as it looks to challenge the Act due to its perceived bias toward political parties.
President Cyril Ramaphosa signed the bill into law in April.
It will allow independent candidates to stand in provincial and national elections in 2024.
In June 2020, the Constitutional Court found the Electoral Act to be constitutionally invalid due to the fact that it prevents independent candidates to stand for political office.
“If the Constitutional Court decides to nullify the new Electoral Act because it has quite a number of weaknesses, then I do not think that the IEC would still be able to have elections within the constitutionally stipulated period,” said Tselane.
Tselane believes the legal challenges will cripple the IEC’s ability to hold free and fair elections.
“The matters that were raised by several organisations in relation to the Electoral Act have not yet been addressed and will create some difficulties for the smooth management of the elections in 2024.
“Parliament was given 24 months but unfortunately there was a delay in terms of implementing the new Electoral Act and now they ended up having to ask for extensions, but those extensions did not help at all as we are back to stage one.”
Tselane said the IEC needs to be more proactive.
“The IEC should approach Parliament and state that they do not think it would be possible to hold free and fair elections within such a period and that the Constitution should be amended to allow for the elections to take place outside a constitutional period of 90 days.”
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