HIV and Aids are eroding the South African electoral base and the increase in the death rate could explain decreasing voter turn-out, said a report on Thursday.
Institute for Democracy in SA (Idasa) chairperson Paul Graham said in Pretoria that while there was a need to avoid the easy headline, this was an emergency.
”Even if we find a vaccine or if we find a cure, this is what South Africa looks like,” Graham said, referring to a map of the country detailing many areas in which the increase in the death of people between the ages of 20 and 49 was in excess of 200%.
He said because elections were seen as the foundation of democracy, the report showed how the country’s foundation was under threat.
The Idasa report detailed mortality among the electorate as reflected on the voters’ roll via the population register. It shows that between 1999 and 2003 almost 1,5-million of South Africa’s registered voters died.
”In the same time the number of deaths among registered voters increased by 66%,” the report said.
It said in some municipalities there was an increase of more than 300% in mortality over the four years for women between the ages of 30 and 39.
Kondwani Chirambo, manager of Idasa’s governance and Aids programme, said the report did not only speak of the impact of Aids on the electoral process, but also addressed the more general question of whether mortality from Aids was as great a problem as argued by analysts and Aids activists.
”This [report] could provide useful evidence in the debate between those who argue for the current estimates of HIV prevalence and Aids mortality and those who argue that these figures are overstated or exaggerated,” he said.
One of the issues explored in the report was the impact of HIV and Aids on the ability of independent electoral bodies to ensure free and fair elections.
It found that the ability of South Africa’s Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) to conduct free and fair elections was ”above suspicion” because of its reliance on technology, but it questioned the ability of its neighbours who were not able to
effectively remove the dead from the voters’ roll, resulting in a ”bloated roll”.
This provided opportunity for fraud and ghost voting, placing the integrity of the election process in question, said Chirambo.
He noted that nine countries in the Southern African Development Community were to have elections in 2004 and 2005. – Sapa