Announcement of date for SA’s elections ‘imminent’

This year’s election date will be announced by President Cyril Ramaphosa once consultations between the president and the Electoral Commission of SA (IEC) are completed.

Presidency spokesperson Vincent Magwenya says the announcement is “imminent” while the chief electoral officer of the IEC, Sy Mamabolo, says the “commission has had consultations with the president and those are nearing completion”.

The sixth National Assembly and the nine provincial legislatures’ terms of office conclude in the middle of May 2024. A seventh parliament of the democratic era must be elected within 90 days of that date.

The window period for the elections stretches from May to mid-August 2024, with the authority to set the election date resting with Ramaphosa.

The IEC has concluded its second and final voter registration weekend, adding 1.2-million people to the voters roll. The voters roll now stands at 27.4million after two voter registration weekends.

Mamabolo said at a media briefing on Tuesday that “77% are young persons under the age of 29 entering the voters roll for the first time. New registrations for young persons stands at 352,524. KwaZulu-Natal again leads, with young persons’ registration at 103,647, followed by Gauteng at 82,168, and in third is the Eastern Cape at 43,673”.

“Gauteng remains the province with the biggest voting population at 6.4-million voters, followed by KwaZulu-Natal at 5.7-million, then the Eastern Cape at 3.4-million voters. The age category 20-29, at 4.3-million, now represents 48% measured against the voting age population,” he said.

The IEC will now focus on its preparations for the upcoming national and provincial elections by calling for submissions from interested parties on the distribution of the 200 regional seats of the National Assembly.

“This work is an important precursor to candidate nomination as it will enable political parties to know how many candidates they may field in each respective region to national list. The number of candidates on a list may not exceed available on any election segment,” he said.

To contest elections political parties and independent candidates will have to pay between R20,000 and R300,000. Deposits are refunded to parties and independent representatives that win a seat.

“A political party that contests the compensatory seats in the National Assembly and in all the nine regions will need to deposit an amount of R300,000. Furthermore, a political party will have to [deposit] R50,000 for each of the provincial legislatures,” Mamabolo said.