The Electoral Insitute for Sustainable Democracy in Africa (EISA) deployed a regional election observation mission to monitor and assess South Africa’s local government elections on invitation by the IEC. The mission, led by EISA executive director Denis Kadima, is comprised of 14 Short Term Observers (STO) from civil society groups from across Africa.
On July 30 of this year, EISA sent six teams of observers to various provinces namely Gauteng, the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga, Limpopo and the Western Cape. As part of their observation methodology, the teams consulted with various stakeholders including the IEC, political parties, civil society organisations and the media.
Overall the IEC received a glowing assessment from EISA, however, Kadima mentioned a few hiccups in their preliminary findings of the local government elections.
1. The run-up to the polls had incidents of violence including political assassinations, particularly in KZN and the Eastern Cape due to increased intra-party competition.
2. EISA observers were informed of destruction of campaign posters in some regions in contrary to the provisions of the Electoral Code of Conduct.
3. While public funding of parties is regulated, there still exists gaps in the law regarding regulation of private sources of funding for parties. As electoral contests become more competitive, this regulatory gap could show manifest in the negative influence of money in electoral politics, namely in electoral fair-play and politics in South Africa as a whole.
4. Given the relatively low number of voters having applied for a special vote, the EISA mission mentioned the process could and should have happened over one, not two Days.
5. EISA noted confusion among polling staff with regard to the required number of ballot boxes and envelopes to be used. EISA says voters’ names were written on envelope B which contained envelope A which in turn contained the marked ballot papers. This carries the potential risk of traceability of the voter’s choice impacting the secrecy of the special voting.
6. Voters seemed to be lacking adequate information regarding the requirements for special voting. Some showed up without having applied for special voter status. In other cases, voters who had applied for the special vote via the special SMS service didn’t receive confirmation from the IEC. Others received confirmation but were not listed on the system.
7. EISA teams observed some inconsistencies with regard to the number of ballot boxes used per polling station. Some used one, others two.
8. There were cases where the card reader, commonly known as a “zip-zip” machine, was malfunctioning and voting staff had to resort to manual identification of voters.
9. Some voters presented themselves at the wrong stations or were informed that the zip-zip machine had identified them as deceased or registered at another polling station.
10. Although 95.1% of polling stations had adequate election materials, where there were insufficient quantities the IEC underpin rapid measures to make these available.
10. A small percentage (less than 5%) of polling stations had inadequate election materials. However, EISA did find that where there were insufficient quantities the IEC undertook rapid measures to make these available.