First
and foremost, we wish to thank political parties and independent candidates for
their continued interest in electoral democracy. Such interest tells us that
the electoral democratic project is well and alive in the country. It is not
lost to the Commission that the unfolding nomination process had to be
undertaken against the backdrop of a pernicious pandemic which is threatening
our collective existence. The lengths to which parties and independent
candidates have gone to ensure compliance with obviously tight timeframes is
remarkable and indicative of agility within our political system.
In
line with the Electoral Timetable, the first stage of the candidate nomination
process concluded last night. The deadline for the submissions was 21h00. There
is currently work in progress to collate all the nomination information. The
preliminary figures indicate the total number of candidates standing at
59 272, including those captured through the Online Candidate Nomination
System, as well manually in the local office of the Commission. 74 per cent of
preliminary candidates were captured through the online system, whereas 26 per
cent came through manual submissions. This innovative ICT solution continues to
offer operational efficiencies whilst at the same time giving political parties
and independent candidates greater control over the capturing process.
Local
offices of the Commission are currently still busy capturing manual submissions
that were received by the cut-off time of 21h00 yesterday. The plan is to conclude
this capturing by the end of today.
The
total number of municipal council seats being contested in this year election
is 10 478. There are 276 unique political parties that submitted
candidates of which two are contesting in all the 257 municipalities in the
country. The total number of independents currently captured is 944. In 2016
there were 855 independent candidates.
The
compliance verification process is already under way. This is to ensure that
candidates on the system are compliant with the electoral prescripts.
As
at this morning the total election deposits paid amount to just over R7-million. Some payments were made late last night through electronic funds
transfer and these may take up to 48 hours to reflect in the bank account of
the Commission.
We
confirm that the online system closed last night at 21h34. The reason for this
was to enable the data transfer from the public website where the Online
Candidate Nomination System is hosted into the internal business application.
In the interests of sound election management practice, candidates whose
details were entered after the deadline of 21h00 cannot and will not be
accepted, but candidates captured before and up to 21h00 will be taken as duly
submitted. This is facilitated through the date and time stamp which is a
component of the Online Candidate Nomination System. The affected candidates
who were captured during the 34 minutes before the online system actually
closed are 74.
On
Friday, 27 August 2021, the Chief Electoral Officer will notify political
parties of any non-compliance that may have arisen. In this regard, contestants
will have until Monday, 30 August 2021, to correct the non-compliance.
Furthermore, on 31 August 2021 parties will be notified of candidates who may
be appearing on multiple party lists. Parties may choose to remove such
candidates and re-order lists by 2 September 2021.
The
final lists of candidates will be certified and published on 7 September 2021.
This date will mark the conclusion point of the candidate nomination process
and the ballot paper production process will then be able to commence.
Certified candidates will be issued with certificates on 13 September 2021.
Lastly,
we experienced protests by members of a political party here at Election House
yesterday. We wish to indicate that the Commission is not entrusted with the
responsibility to mediate internal party disputes. Parties are urged to set
processes to manage internal disputes. The Commission thus condemns protests
action direct at it in circumstances where it has no lawful role to play in
internecine party disputes.
ENDS
ISSUED BY THE ELECTORAL COMMISSION
Ensuring free and fair elections
Centurion
For media queries: Please contact Kate Bapela on 082
600 6386
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