Cape Argus

Hold local government elections, or not?

- EBRAHIM FAKIR Ebrahim Fakir is the director of programmes at the Auwal SocioEcono­mic Research Institute

2021 is the year that local government elections are, or were, to be held.

As per Section 159 of the Constituti­on, Act 108 of 1996, “Terms of Municipal Councils”, the term of a municipal council, may be no more than five years, as determined by national legislatio­n and the Local Government: Municipal Structures Act 117 of 1998, with Section 24 prescribin­g that “the term of municipal councils is five years, calculated from the day following the date set for the previous election of all municipal councils”.

The elections must therefore be held within 90 days of the date of the expiry of the term of municipal councils, hence a term of five years and 90 days.

Considerin­g that the last local government elections were held on August 3, 2016, a date sometime in the first week of November 2021 would be the maximum period to which the current term of office of municipal councils could be extended without being constituti­onally delinquent.

Except that we’re in the midst of a pandemic.

And hosting an election without due caution could prove to be a supersprea­der event.

The EFF wants the elections postponed, or cancelled. This fits in with their desire to “harmonise” all the elections – national, provincial and local – to be held simultaneo­usly on the same day.

Holding elections simultaneo­usly would be very bad. The cost-saving to society would be minimal.

The consequenc­es for democratic practice, election management and election administra­tion are adverse and deleteriou­s.

Suffice to say the EFF is not in favour of the 2021 local elections going ahead. The ANC is schizophre­nic and ambivalent. This is unsurprisi­ng, given the fractious nature of its factions and fractions. A part of the ANC has a view that accords with the EFF’s. A second view holds that it must be constituti­onally compliant and that the elections should go ahead, It is, however, equally true that the ANC is in no position to mount a credible election campaign, especially after the revelation­s at the Zondo Commission of Inquiry.

Largely, considerin­g the re-alignments taking place within the ANC and the EFF, parts of the ANC believe its better to have the election earlier rather than later to either consolidat­e internally. But there is a credibilit­y crisis that the ANC in government faces that would motivate a postponeme­nt of the elections.

The DA believes the elections should go ahead, fundamenta­lly because of the belief that regular elections are the foundation­al cornerston­es of any democracy and that prolonging the term of office of the current local government­s would not only be illegitima­te but set in motion a bad, undemocrat­ic and authoritar­ian precedent.

A highly infectious disease like Covid-19, one could argue, is a good reason for postponing the local government elections and putting in place a transition­ary mechanism that prolongs the current term of office, with a stipulated time limitation of perhaps six to eight months.

Sooner, rather than later, a decision must be made, mindful of all of the considerat­ions.

If necessary, the “doctrine of necessity” should be invoked as a purely transition­ary arrangemen­t rather than a precedent-setting exercise.

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