By Thys Khiba
Pretoria – The chief electoral officer Sy Mamabolo of the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) says political parties have until this Tuesday, September 21, at 5 pm to submit their candidate lists.
“Of the 430,000 new registrations, over 91% are young people and this speaks to the partnerships with institutions of higher learning and the online facility which is the mainstay of the registrations going forward,” said Mamabolo.
Mamabolo confirmed that the commission would have loved a greater quantitative voter registration outcome; by he believes the commission has done its best in registering voters.
Despite this announcement by the ICE, the opposition political party Democratic Alliance (DA) has attempted to challenge the IEC decision to reopen the councillor candidate registration process ahead of the local government elections.
In favor of the IEC, the Constitutional Court on Monday dismissed the DA’s challenge.
The commission opened the candidate nomination portal on Monday which meant that those that wanted to make submissions online could do so.
The Institute of Election Management Services in Africa (IEMSA) executive chairman Terry Tselane said he is not surprised as the ConCourt provided its reasons on whether the IEC could open candidate registration or not.
“What the court was saying essentially is that it had not precluded the IEC from proceeding with the election timetable,” said Tselane. @fscentralnews
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