It will be a ”logistical nightmare” for the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) to prepare for elections if the Constitutional Court affirms a ruling that South Africans living abroad should be allowed to vote, an election expert told the Mail & Guardian Online on Tuesday.
Titi Pitso, the election and political processes manager at the Electoral Institute of Southern African, said that the main challenges the IEC will face are logistics, time and budget constraints. These could result in a delay in the election processes and announcement of the results.
”The commission will need to ascertain the number of potential voters in every country in the world and collect their information in order to generate a voters’ roll. This takes a lot of work and is time-consuming,” Pitso said.
While government employees and students living abroad cast their votes at South African embassies, Pitso said they would not be able to accommodate large numbers of expatriates. It is estimated that there are between 600Â 000 and 1,4 million South Africans currently living in London alone.
”The IEC will incur heavy costs for setting up voting stations around the world and sending independent election officers to each country to ensure voting is free and fair. There will obviously be financial constraints as the IEC did not expect to cater for two million expats when it received its budget,” Pitso said.
The commission will also have to consider other logistical issues such as the printing and transporting of ballot papers. Each embassy will have to ensure that the ballots are returned to South Africa in time to be counted so that the IEC can announce the election results within seven days.
”The IEC cannot guarantee they will receive these ballots in time and this could possibly lead to a delay in announcing the results, which could fuel suspicion and political violence in our already heated political climate,” Pitso said.
Too late?
Pitso said that opposition parties should have approached Parliament or the courts ”years ago” to have the Electoral Act amended.
”I believe it’s fair that South Africans overseas should be allowed to vote … my argument is simply that the [Democratic Alliance and Freedom Front Plus] should not have waited until so close to the elections to contest this law.”
Pretoria High Court Judge Piet Eberson ruled on Monday that South Africans living abroad should be allowed to vote.
He said the Electoral Act infringed on the voting rights of many South Africans expats as it ”limited” voting to those temporarily living abroad.
The IEC declined to comment on the ruling, saying they are awaiting the Constitutional Court’s verdict.
The African National Congress also expressed concern on Tuesday about potential delays if South Africans abroad are allowed to vote.
However, the party said it was ”preferable that all South Africans, including those temporarily abroad, have an opportunity to cast their votes in the elections.”
ANC spokesperson Jessie Duarte said: ”Our position is simply to uphold any court decision and we agree that all South Africans who have registered have a right to vote … we are concerned over postponing the date of the election.”
Also on Tuesday, President Kgalema Motlanthe announced that the election would take place on April 22.
Speaking in the National Assembly, Motlanthe said: ”… I must, however, emphasise that the actual proclamation of this date will be made later.”
Call to delay elections
The announcement of the election date comes a day before the Pretoria High Court hears an application from the Freedom Front Plus to delay the presidency from proclaiming the date of the national elections.
The party brought the application on behalf of Willem Richter, a South African living in England, to interdict the presidency from proclaiming the election date.
Constitutional law expert and University of South Africa Professor Shadrack Gutto said the Constitutional Court’s task in considering the ruling to allow expats to vote was an arduous one.
”It was an important application to try and clarify legislation … political participation is central to Constitutional provisions … but the application comes very late and close to the election.
”It will create a real test for the Constitutional Court in the sense that elections cannot be delayed, the terms of office of the current government is prescribed and anything which will delay the process is something that the Constitutional Court will frown upon,” he said.