DA asks West for help monitoring elections
● The DA is asking powerful Western countries such the US and the UK to make resources available to bolster the deployment of independent domestic election observers ahead of the May 29 vote.
In a letter to US secretary of state Antony Blinken and 13 other foreign ministers, the DA requests support for local efforts to safeguard the credibility of the elections if the government does not grant international observers permission to monitor them.
The letter has been sent to the foreign ministers of countries including France, Germany, Canada, Italy, Japan, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland, and the EU.
The move has been slammed by the ANC, which said it amounted to mortgaging the country.
The letter was written by the DA’s shadow minister of international relations, Emma Powell, who tells Blinken and his counterparts that the ANC is forming alliances with tyrannical regimes and could do everything to cling to power. The DA asks the foreign ministers to make available modern technologies and other resources to monitor the elections. “Here, we are witnessing an increasing willingness by the ANC to forge alliances with malign international actors, whose regimes are characterised by tyranny, terror and oppression. We therefore appeal to your government to recognise the high stakes for South Africa in the lead up to, and aftermath of the NPE2024. “It is in this context that we now formally request our partners in democracy to engage with consequence in the run-up to the election,” writes Powell.
The letter comes on the back of a similar missive sent to the same Western countries by the multiparty charter.
Powell asks the countries to support local civil society bodies in providing voter education and assist domestic election monitors with capacity building. She says the DA has noted with “increasing alarm the potential for foreign interference in our elections by malign actors”
— an apparent reference to countries the DA regards as undemocratic and aligned with the ANC.
The DA further asks for sponsorship of a parallel vote tabulation (PVT) process run by independent organisations. PVT is data technology used to project and verify the accuracy of results from voting stations.
“We will be requesting a formal meeting with your embassy in South Africa in coming weeks, where we will provide more specific detail in respect of our requests,” Powell writes.
The ANC said the DA’s letter amounted to putting the country’s sovereignty up for sale. “This plea is a clear attempt to bring about regime change, disguised in opportunistic language,” said ANC national spokesperson Mahlengi Bhengu-Motsiri.
She said it was false to suggest that there would be no international observer missions or a significantly reduced number of them in these elections.
“Our Independent Electoral Commission (sic) is highly regarded worldwide for conducting credible elections. As per usual practice in democratic South Africa, the IEC invites over 120 international organisations, regional and continental organisations such as the AU and Sadc [the Southern African Development Community] among others.
“The notion that an African country’s elections are only considered credible when they are observed by Europeans and Americans is a clear example of paternalistic opportunism. Despite our impeccable track record of running free and fair elections in South Africa, we have never sought to comment on elections in the West, even when their own citizens question the credibility of their electoral process.”
Powell writes that the recent establishment of the MK Party, backed by former president Jacob Zuma, presents a risk to peace in the run-up to the elections and afterwards. She says South Africa’s peaceful transition to democracy in 1994 was supported by countries that shared its progressive vision and worked to defeat racial nationalism and political oppression.
“This support is as necessary now as it was then, because when democracies work together to preserve a rules-based international order that promotes democracy, individual freedom, political franchise and universal human rights, nations thrive.”
Meanwhile, the South African Council of Churches has declared May 5 a national day of prayer for the elections.